


blood in the water

by perpetualnovelboyfriend



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blumentrio, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Multi, OT3, Pregnancy, Trent Ikithon should have his own warning, blumenthal trio, general spoilers for anything Cerberus Assembly related, the blumenthal three
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:09:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 25,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27069889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perpetualnovelboyfriend/pseuds/perpetualnovelboyfriend
Summary: the price of your greed is your son and your daughter-Astrid-centric 'what happened to the other two when Bren went to the sanatorium?' fic
Relationships: Astrid/Eodwulf (Critical Role), Astrid/Eodwulf/Bren Aldric Ermendrud, Eodwulf/Bren Aldric Ermendrud
Comments: 48
Kudos: 81





	1. all the fear and the fire of the end of the world

**Author's Note:**

> Basically what happened here was I misheard a line of dialogue and got obsessed with it. I know it might not align perfectly with the general fanon, but I sure do think it's neat.

The smoke still clung to them. Still thick and acrid in the back of Astrid’s throat. The skin on her neck still stings in cool evening air. She is raw, inside and out. Singed clothing and all, she crawls into the dormitory bed, eyes wide but unfocussed. The scent aggravates her lately heightened sense of smell but she finds she can’t even muster the strength to aid herself with magic.

Eodwulf shuts the door softly behind himself a moment later. She knows he must be nearly as exhausted as she, but he stands there to glance around the room, as if lost for the moment.

“Come to bed, Eodwulf.” Is about as much help as she feels she can offer. For all it does help. Only a night ago it would have been the three of them. They would pile into one dormitory room, one creaking little dormitory bed, and sleep all the sounder for the comfort of being in each other's arms.

It takes him a notable second to come back from wherever his thoughts had left him, but Eodwulf complies. He climbs over her to the other side of the bed. When he wraps his arms around her, Astrid feels the familiar tingle of healing magic and the burn on her neck begin to sooth. The nausea subsides too.

“You shouldn’t have saved that for me.” The words come out with more venom than she intends. If she’d had more to give… then maybe tonight would have ended differently.

Eodwulf sucks in a breath like he’s about to go off, then thinks better of it and lets it out in a long weary sigh. “Don’t do this, Astrid. Not you too.”

She swallows back what she’s sure would have been more vitriol. Not at him. She’s still not entirely certain who’s to blame for the night’s awful turn, but he’s right. She doesn’t want to lose both of them either.

Her fingers bunch up the sheets in the space where Bren should have been, then relax, then bunch them again. Eodwulf rubs at her arm with his much larger hand, as if asking her to stop. For a horrible moment it feels like earlier in the night; When he had tried to hold her back from Bren. She puts a hand on Eodwulf’s. Running her thumb over the back of his hand she feels more burn blisters. If she weren’t completely spent she would have returned the favor from before. She brings both their hands to rest at her side, over her stomach.

“What did we miss, Wulf?” Astrid breaks the silence with a whisper. There had to be something. If Bren had been there - if it had all gone to plan - he still would have asked them the same. Always something to improve. Always a way they could have done better. Bren was always steps ahead of either of them.

“He didn’t say anything to you?”

Astrid grips the bedsheet again to keep herself from snapping a response. She should have seen it coming. Even if it wasn’t what Eodwulf had meant to imply. If Bren was always steps ahead, then she was always hot on his heels.

“He was practically catatonic by then, you saw. I- I tried to snap him out of it-“

“But before. Before tonight. He said… nothing?” It feels like he’s digging for something even though Astrid knows that’s never been Eodwulf’s style. It’s the guilt. The thought that they had all been missing some piece to a puzzle they hadn’t known they would need to solve. And what if one of them had held that piece back?

“Wulfie…”

“Hm?”

“I think I may be pregnant.”

Eodwulf tenses, then shifts so that he can better look down at her. “Why would you let that happen?”

The use of let is a choice and they both know it. “I don’t know. I just… I had a feeling, I think.” She can’t explain it. She knows it’s stupid. There wasn’t logically any way she could have known things would have gone this way, especially now while they were all still reeling from the night’s events. She never would have thought this of their Bren.

“About what?”

“Tonight. My parents. All of our’s, I guess. It made it easier in my mind. Like the old making way for the new. They wouldn’t really be dead, or they’d live on, something like that.” And out of all of them, Bren’s family ties ran the deepest. She should have known. She should have told him.

“Master Ikithon doesn’t know?”

Astrid shakes her head. “He would have said something by now, I’m sure. It’s been… some months.”

“So you know for certain which one of us…?”

“Bren. Yes.” Somehow her smile just makes the tears fall faster. “I should have told him.”

“You couldn’t’ve known.” Eodwulf unlaces his fingers from her’s to wipe at the tears. “But what if…”

It’s not uncommon for Eodwulf to trail away like that, but it meant his worries had found something too terrible to speak out loud.

“What if?”

“How will you tell Master Ikithon?”

It’s not an answer, but she knows he must be getting at something. “I will wait for tonight’s ash to settle and I will go to him and I will say that I am pregnant and- And I want to see this through and I think after all this I feel I have earned the right to have this baby.”

“You won’t tell him it’s Bren’s.” That wasn’t a question. Astrid doesn’t ask her’s in turn, but he seems to intuit it. “Tell him it’s mine, tell him it’s anyone else’s, it’s not about that, it’s… I don’t want to give him a reason to say no.”

There shouldn’t have been a question at all, she knows that. If she had been an average woman. But average women didn’t sign their souls away to an archmage in exchange for a greater future. One that he picked. “He won’t.”

“But what if-“

“He won’t.” She laces her fingers with his and gives his hand a sharp squeeze, then brings them both back to rest on her stomach. She wants to say she wouldn’t let him, but it doesn’t quite take form.


	2. you start to wonder why you're here not there

Astrid’s fingers tap rapidly on the bench outside Ikithon’s academy office. Eodwulf had gone in first. It wasn’t unusual as their assignments merged more and more with the work of a volstrucker for Ikithon to hold these sorts of follow ups. But that had always been with the three of them. He meant to confuse them, to throw them off somehow. It was why he’d waited the week too, Astrid was sure.

Eodwulf’s unspoken what if still rattles in her head. They hadn’t spoken of it since that night. Their first thoughts were with Bren, as they should have been.

“He won’t really have us kill them.” Bren had speculated back at the beginning of their long terrible month of preparation. Maybe that’s when they should have known. Or when she should have told him. “He only wants to know that we could. That we’d make the right choice, for the greater good of the empire.”

Astrid’s fidgeting moves on to the bouncing of her leg as she turns the memory over in her head. He still could have been right, in a way. She’d made plenty of choices in the last month, the months before, and one of them was liable to be very, very wrong.

The office door swings open silently, but Astrid startles at the movement. Eodwulf slips through the empty space and gently shuts it behind him. For a moment he stands there with a soured expression that sets Astrid even more at unease. It softens only a little once she’s caught his eye.

“He would prefer we not allow ourselves to be distracted by the loss of Bren.” There is a certain tightness to the words that she knows means he’s only repeating what he’s been told. If it feels like a blow now, she can only imagine what hearing from Master Ikithon must have felt like.

Astrid stands to meet him in the middle of the hallway, leaning in so they can speak softly. “He thinks we’ve lost Bren entirely?”

Eodwulf shrugs in that squirrelly sort of way that means he’s having trouble finding the right words. “He won’t commit to much about Bren right now. I don’t know. I think Bren rattled him almost as much as it did us.”

Impossible, but she doesn’t argue. Yet. She’s danced between being mournful to vengeful half a dozen times just that morning. It was cruel of Master Ikithon to make them wait the week, even crueler to do things separately, but again, that was the point.

“He just needs to know we’re not going to break too.”

“He said that?” Astrid feels the chill of terror like before. She could still fail.

Eodwulf hesitates. “I think he’d rather tell you everything himself. Just… Tell him what he needs to hear. You’ll be fine.”

She can’t decide what he means by that. They should have talked about it again. Bren would have made her, but Eodwulf had never been the type to press.

“Wulf, I-“ She starts, but she’s missed the fact that the door has swung open again, but no one steps out. Just the voice of Master Ikithon calling sternly from inside, “Now, please, Astrid.”

She and Eodwulf exchange a look, but it doesn’t grant her any more clarity than before.

“I’ll catch up with you after, alright?” He kisses her quickly on the lips before starting down the hall.

‘Now’ does not allow for much time to hesitate, but Astrid still takes the second to steel herself before entering the office. Her hand ghosts over her stomach as she inhales, though she keeps the thoughts of not really being alone to her mind’s periphery. She can’t think like that. Not yet.

Once she steps inside, the door shuts behind her without her assistance. Master Ikithon sits at the desk in the center, back lit by half drawn curtains as he works at some paperwork. All at once, it felt too normal. Even the way he lazily flicks his gaze up to her feels too comfortable.

“I trust Eodwulf has briefed you.” There is a bemusement in his look that Astrid finds hard not to be angry about. How dare he feel anything of the sort

“Only a little.” She takes the seat opposite Master Ikithon, just as stiff and tense as the very first time she’d been called to his office alone. Nearly every other time after it had been the three of them. Even as children, between Bren and Eodwulf she’d always felt easier to overlook. She preferred it that way.

“Go on then, Astrid.” He waves her on before returning to whatever is so important on his desk. “Ask your questions.”

“You think Bren is lost to us?”

“For the time being I think your energies would be better placed finding ways to work without Bren.”

“I understand, sir. My only thought is that if he could just see Eodwulf and I now-“

“Eodwulf has already tried this argument.”

Astrid shuts her mouth and gathers her thoughts. One still slips through unbidden. “Have you given up on him?”

The scratching of the pen against paper stops and Master Ikithon looks up. “Of course not.”

“Then how do you expect us to?"

“It may be hard for you to understand, but I am doing what’s best for him. It is unfortunate he’d managed to hide such a weakness for so long, but that was the point of the assignment after all. In time, I’m sure Bren will come out the other side stronger for it. You all will.”

She wants to find comfort in the idea that Bren isn’t entirely gone, but instead she finds herself stuck back on the idea of hidden weaknesses.

“Do you doubt my intentions for you, Astrid?”

“Never, sir.”

Ikithon sighs, finally setting down his pen and giving her his full attention. Astrid had long since learned any softening of his countenance meant they should have been doubly on guard, but for the moment she was grateful. “It is upsetting what happened with Bren. And of course you and Eodwulf would take it particularly hard, but you shouldn’t let it overshadow your accomplishments. You’ve come so far, dear Astrid. Don’t let this knock you from the course I’ve laid out for you.”

It feels like bait.

“I think I already have been.”

“Because you are pregnant.” He says it so suddenly and so emotionlessly it is deceptively easy for her to take it in stride.

“Yes.”

“Why tell me now, Astrid?”

“It would have to come out eventually.” Evidently it already had. She wondered now if she’d ever been very good at hiding the warning signs, or if she’d just been allowed to think so.

“You’ve never mentioned the want of a family before, which leads me to believe this was not planned. However, you’ve been in and out of those boys’ beds for some time now. You and I both know there are ways of preventing this, so it was at some level a choice. The fact that you’re telling me about this at all indicates a want to keep it. Why?”

“I’m afraid I may be just as weak as Bren. With the assignment, I just- I started thinking about what I would have left of my family.” At least, that was how it had begun. “I know they’re traitors and they don’t deserve to be remembered, but I- It was a lapse in judgement.”

“You poor, stupid girl.”

The insult strikes a nerve, as she’s sure it was meant to. How many times had she told herself she would never be either of those things again? And here she’d been about to throw it away on some misplaced emotion. “I would understand though, sir, especially in light of everything recently, if you would prefer I end it now.”

“Would you?”

She wants to say no. She wants to say this may very well be the last bit of Bren they’ll ever have and that if he were really so broken up about their loss then he would let her have this. Instead, she says, “Haven’t I just proven where my loyalties lie?”

She hopes to whatever god would take pity on her that Bren was right after all. All Master Ikithon needed to know was that she could.

When all he does is sigh in return, Astrid continues to dig her hole. “As you pointed out, I did complete the assignment without issue. I believe I could still be able to do my work as a volstrucker for a while yet. Some small accommodations may have to be made later, but I think I could be back at full force maybe even within a couple of weeks-“

“Do you think you have to convince me, Astrid?”

Yes, but now that felt like the wrong answer. “Have I failed after all?”

“This has complicated things, hasn’t it?” He lets the question hang before continuing. Despite herself, Astrid fidgets in her seat. “But given all our other complications, I have chosen to see this as an opportunity.”

“Opportunity?” It’s not a no. It’s not failure. But it still doesn’t sound like an entirely good thing.

“This would be our first born and bred volstrucker. I would not have to waste my time sussing out their potential or work out any outside influences. We might just avoid a situation like Bren’s entirely. Not to mention our abilities to push certain experiments further. Your timing could have been improved, but this really is a wonderful opportunity you’ve brought to us, Astrid.”

“I see.” She suspects she shouldn’t be breathing any easier now, but she does. At least she’s still useful. At least they still kept something of Bren’s.

“Would you object?”

Astrid shakes her head. “Never, sir.”

“Smart girl.” Ikithon’s grin is as genuine as she’s ever seen it.


	3. when I'm losing my control, the city spins around

Eodwulf steps out from an alcove in the hallway and matches pace with Astrid. She doesn’t slow, though when he’d told her later she had expected something like later that evening. With the way he practically seems to be vibrating with nervousness now she can see how he wouldn’t be able to stand the waiting.

“I told him.” She at least tries to put him out of his misery quickly. There had been some strange catharsis in telling Ikithon. She could just say it now. All the little thoughts she’d told herself not to think, the hopeful ones, had begun to trickle through at last.

“What did you tell him?”

“That I am pregnant, Eodwulf, keep up.”

The way he frowns doesn’t escape her, but they keep walking. “But what did he say? What did you say exactly?”

“He already knew.”

“He knew? This whole time?”

“I would hope not the moment it happened, but evidently yes.”

“Well, I didn’t know. I’m sure Bren didn’t either.” He says it like it’s supposed to be some consolation.

“It doesn’t matter now.” There is a small pause in her gait as she considers dropping the spell that feels as though it’d been holding her together these last months. It’s still early, but she’s small and acutely aware of the way things have stopped fitting the way they used to. When she drops it, the burn marks on her neck return as does the more jagged edges to her hair where she’d removed the singed ends.

Eodwulf doesn’t react to any of it, stuck on something else entirely. “Why? He can’t make you end if you don’t want. You’re practically an adult. If he thinks you’re capable enough to be volstrucker, then you should be allowed to make other decisions too. It wouldn’t be fair.” The residuim stuck in his forearms sparks with magic energy, betraying his emotions even further.

Their master had strapped them down one by one and forced entire crystals into their arms. He’d tasked them to kill their parents. Astrid had no doubt that if Trent Ikithon had not at the very least found a silver lining to it, she wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Still, it was nice to know Eodwulf cared so fiercely. Even if it would have been futile.

“Relax, Wulfie. He… He wants this too.” She turns back to him with a small smile before opening the door to her academy room. Probably for the last time. Beside the last box of her things, the room is bare.

“But… why?” Eodwulf remains in the doorway just until Astrid begins to lift the box. He swoops in to carry it for her, going so far as to lift it just out of reach when she tries to protest.

With a final scowl up at him, Astrid returns to answering the question. “A pedigree, I suppose. I am a volstrucker broodmare now.” She means it to be teasing, even with the bite. Eodwulf doesn’t take it as such.

“He didn’t say that.” Eodwulf’s arms spark again.

“He implied it. He implied a lot of things.” She reflects on them bitterly for a moment, but Eodwulf doesn’t need to hear it. She would have liked to be happier about it all. She would have liked it to be the three of them, finalizing the move from the academy to their little townhome in the shimmer ward, eagerly awaiting their first real assignment as volstrucker.

“But yes… I- I’m going to have a baby.” Her voice softens to just above a whisper, some because they’re back out in the hall, but mostly because it’s the first time she’s said it. Maybe even allowed herself to think it. She fights a smile as she looks over for Eodwulf’s reaction.

He has no reservations in grinning back, as she’d hoped. “We should do something, to celebrate.”

Her smile fades as she thinks about it. She has an inkling of an idea of what they would be doing, the three of them, to celebrate their ‘graduation’. Bren should have been there. “All I want to do is tell Bren.”

Especially as she’s brought them to Bren’s room. No one had told them yet what was to be done with his things, which at least meant no one had told her she couldn’t be certain to hang on to a few important items.

“Me too.” Eodwulf remains in the doorway again, his voice softened too. “What did he say about Bren?”

Astrid gives a small shrug as she begins her sweep of the room. It’s mostly books, of course. She begins gathering journals from Bren’s desk. The framed likeness of Leofric and Una - his parents - she lays face down before continuing on.

“The same thing he told you, I think. We shouldn’t let ourselves be distracted. I didn’t think it wise to keep pushing after…” There’s still a want to not say it, mixed with the guilt of going through the things of the one person she’s sure she should have told. “He never asked who I thought the father was.”

“Is that a good thing?” Eodwulf holds the box a bit lower so she can tuck the journals in amongst her own things.

“I can’t be sure.” Another implication Eodwulf doesn’t need to hear, mostly because they’d all heard that one before. All Ikithon had asked was who she’d told. _Interesting,_ was all he’d said when she’d had to admit only Eodwulf knew thus far.

Astrid pulls a sweater from Bren’s drawers. One from home. It didn’t matter how many times he’d tried - though honestly, she’d always doubted he did at all - cat hair still clung to it for dear life. She hugs it to herself and pulls a scarf out too, which she then tosses around Eodwulf’s neck. “He might think it’s yours.”

“Is _that_ a good thing?” Despite what he’d told her, Eodwulf looks nervous at the thought. The flash of panic, no matter how subtle, makes Astrid laugh, just a little. That felt normal.

“I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see…” She kneels down to crawl under the bed for the loosened floorboard they all knew Ikithon had to have known about, but hid things under anyway. She can hear Eodwulf fidgeting behind her, but he doesn’t protest.

When she reemerges she brings with her a mostly full bottle of whiskey and a small wooden cat - another something from home. She picks up the frame from the desk on her way back, taking care not to actually look at it again.

“Did I forget anything?” She asks, placing the final items in her box.

Eodwulf shrugs, bothered again. “Ikithon’ll store whatever else until he comes back. It’s not like he’s dead.”

“I know that.” There’s a warning in her tone as she steps back out into the hall. It doesn’t sit well with her, but she’s tired. They both are.

There’s a heavy sigh from Eodwulf and he doesn’t follow immediately. When he does he makes a point to bump into her. “I just… He should be here, you know?”

“Yeah.” Astrid bumps back into him. She hates how normal that feels when there’s still an absence on her other side.

It takes until they’ve left the academy, out on the shimmer ward’s streets, before she tries to lighten the mood. “I told him to start packing sooner.”

When she looks up at Eodwulf she can’t tell if he’s about to laugh or cry.

“Wulfie…”

“Shut up.” He growls, but it sounds more like his old self. With some struggle he fishes the whiskey bottle from the box, uncaps it, and takes a pull. “It’s been a long fucking week.”

Astrid sighs, still struggling with the almost normal but at all -ness of it all. “It’s going to be a long six fucking months.”

“Is that when you think?”

“If all goes well.” She still feels the need to hedge. She can’t help it, it got her this far.

Eodwulf’s optimism begins to trickle back in regardless. “Do you know what it will be?”

“I suppose I could, soon.” She and Ikithon had only covered the logistics of it all briefly. Astird was grateful for it, in spite of the fact she didn’t know where to begin with things like midwives or whatever else. She chooses not to dwell on it just yet, for Eodwulf’s sake. “Would you want to know?”

Eodwulf ignores the question. She can’t tell if it’s out of excitement or something else. “What about names?”

Astrid shakes her head. “I haven’t let myself think about it yet. What about you?”

“What about me what?”

“Names, Wulfie. Keep up.”

“Oh. I thought that sort of thing would be for you and… well.” Was every conversation going to feel like walking a tightrope now?

“You think we would have shared absolutely everything with you but not this?” She truly hadn’t given it any thought. None of them had, as far as she knew. Still, she can’t imagine all of their lives any less entangled now than the months before.

Eodwulf gets that look again. He glances away when she begins to smirk up at him. “Shut up.”

Astrid laughs. “Keep up, _vater.”_


	4. we'll do it all, everything, on our own

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that feel when you're moving but you don't have a himbo wizard significant other to carry the boxes for you :c  
> almost had an update schedule... almost

Eodwulf had argued the loudest for their little home in the shimmer ward. Astrid had noticed even before things had been complicated, his new and increasing insistence that once they were volstruckers, Ikithon could no longer manage all aspects of their lives. Where she and Bren had become comfortable with, even grateful for their plans carefully laid out before them, Eodwulf was determined swerve if only for the sake of being unpredictable.

“You can’t trust us with that and not think we’re capable adults.” He’d sneered one evening as they’d walked back from Ikithon’s home, after the idea was met with doubts again. Ikithon had never outright told them what to do, he merely presented the information they lacked.

“We aren’t adults.” Bren had reminded him flatly. He’d started to sound more and more like their master in certain situations. Another something Astrid now wished she’d paid more attention to; Maybe he hadn’t just been trying to remain impartial and logical, maybe there had been something there. “I don’t think it was meant to be an insult to your capabilities, Wulf.”

“You want to be under his thumb forever?”

“Not forever, no. But considering one of us will wind up master of the estate anyway…”

“Or mistress.” Astrid had teased. There had never been any question about it. Bren would replace Ikithon, when he was ready. That was just the way of things. That was the only reason why she’d said things like that, now she had to wonder…

“Where do you want to be, Astrid?” Eodwulf had whined like he expected her help arguing. They all did it sometimes. It amused her, usually. At least it used to.

To tell the truth, Astrid hadn’t let herself get that far. There had come a point somewhere in their youths that thoughts of the future, no matter how close or far out, seemed pointless. It would all be decided for them one way or another. But Wulf didn’t like it when she talked like that, so she’d simply shrugged. “So long as we’re all together, I think I could live anywhere.”

“Of course.” She remembers the way Bren had softened after that. The way he’d smiled so warmly at her and moments later she was the one being ganged up on to let herself hope for the future. It wasn’t so much a promise in words, but she’d felt it all the same.

So it felt cruel now, to sit there almost completely alone in the house the three of them had planned. One of the first things that was supposed to be _theirs_.

Eodwulf had maintained some outside work for the past couple years. Another one of his quiet rebellions, not being wholly reliant on their allowances from Ikithon. And since their move from the academy dorms, it seemed to be his way of coping. At least a distraction. He helped settle in, of course, but after that…

She only brings it up on the third day, while the both of them are lounged in their tiny sitting room after dinner.

“Well what else am I supposed to do?” Eodwulf slouches in his chair. She doesn’t remember how it came to be there, but Astrid is fairly certain Eodwulf had dragged it in off someone’s curbside. “I can’t just sit here until there’s work for us.”

“Neither can I.” She huffs in return. Even if he doesn’t mean it like that, he should have known.

“You don’t have to.” Eodwulf continues to miss the point. “But maybe you should. I mean, rest.”

“I’m only sick because I’m not hiding it all with magic now.” She rubs a hand over her stomach, as if she’s forgotten how much it showed now without the spells.

“Have you found someone about that yet?”

Astrid sighs, frustrated by the subject change and Eodwulf’s continued ignorance on the topic. “I’m working on it. I haven’t exactly done this before, you know?” Nor was there anyone with her who had. There’s a pang of remorse for her mother, but she brushes it away as quick as she can.

“I’m just trying to help.” He reminds and Astrid sighs again. She shouldn’t’ve had to explain how this effected her. She didn’t want to.

“I know. I’m just… tired.”

A period of adjustments was to be expected - Even if they’d still had Bren. Even without the baby - But this feigning of adult life feels pointed in ways Astrid hadn’t expected. The one amplifies the other sound loud some days she wonders if she’ll be the next to break. That even this was some sort of test and she was failing.

So Astrid waits. She picks at the research projects she’d started on a whim before all of this and when that begins to feel pointless she begins fussing with some aspect of the house, which only leads to her almost but not quite allowing herself to begin worrying if she should be doing more to prepare for the baby. And by then she just misses Bren. And Eodwulf. All three of them. Together.

By the end of the week she’s plucked up the nerve to do something. It’s not what she should be doing, Astrid knows this. But it’s important all the same. She tells herself she’ll do other things while she’s out, but she knows this is a lie. Her path is direct, towards the soltryce academy, down the familiar halls and to a particular teleportation circle she knows she can use discretely. At least, that had been the hope.

As she rounds the last corner a familiar silhouette blocks her way and Astrid can’t help but jump back a step.

“Astrid?” It isn’t within Ikithon to be surprised, she’s certain. All he ever sounds is resigned to their poor decisions. “What brings you here?”

There’s a brief panic as she wonders if she’d been right all along. Ikithon had been watching her, waiting for her to crack like this. But of course he wouldn’t give it away just by looking at him.

“I had meant to seek you out sir.”

“There are more likely places to find me.”

“After going to inquire about Bren myself.” There’s no sense in lying. Especially if he had caught her and not just bumped into it by chance.

He frowns, but it’s no more severe than normal. “No change.” She wonders if that’s where he’d been just now.

“Do you think then, since it’s been some time-“

“You’ve let that burn scar after all.” He says it like he really has just noticed. Ikithon reaches out and runs a finger over Astrid’s scarred neck. She looks away but it only gives him the opportunity to trace along her jaw and turn her back to him. “Keeping all kinds of secrets now, I see.”

“No, sir! I was just so tired after everything, I forgot-“

“But you’d remembered at least to cover it up in the interim.”

“I didn’t want to waste my energy today.”

“How interesting.”

There’s a long silence, as there usually is after Ikithon had deemed something interesting.

“If that’s the last interaction you had with him, what makes you think this would be any different?”

“He didn’t know what he was doing, he was upset.”

“But it won’t be upsetting to see you now?”

“And Eodwulf.”

“Eodwulf isn’t here now.”

She feels like she’s been caught again, but doing what she isn’t quite sure.

“You want to tell him about the pregnancy. You think it would give him reason to improve.”

“It might.”

“I had so hoped the three of you would have remained above these kinds of distractions…” Ikithon sighs but it seems more for his own benefit than her’s. “Have you considered yet this may have the opposite of your desired effect?”

“No, sir.”

“Deliberately or have I continued to over estimate your intelligence?”

“Because I know Bren.” _Better than you._ She wants to add, but she knows he could find some way to twist that to her detriment. “And Bren knows us. He just needs to remember what we’re all doing this for.” The Empire, of course. Not her. Not Wulf. Not the baby. Astrid doesn’t have that sort of hope in her, she’s sure.

Ikithon doesn’t argue. He hums, thoughtfully, though she can’t quite tell if it’s doubtful. “Let me walk you home, Astrid.”

She turns back towards the way she had come and falls in step beside him.


	5. come inside, twist the knife, like it's something to do

“You know, we’re basically wizard assassins Astrid, I feel like letting me know you aren’t home shouldn’t be that-” Eodwulf begins the moment she’s opened the door. Astrid only has time for a small cringe before he comes into view of the doorway, his more casual tone dying on his lips at the sight of Ikithon behind her.

“Good evening, Master Ikithon.” The shift back to Eodwulf’s academy persona is seamless, but for the first time clearly visible to Astrid.

She isn’t so much pushed as stepped around as Ikithon moves inside. He has to know the looking around is unsettling, at least for her so she can only imagine how Eodwulf must feel, but that’s more than likely why he’s doing it at all.

Astrid steps inside after him, shutting the door behind her and then taking the usual place beside Eodwulf. She doesn’t leave the space where Bren should have been, but she thinks about it.

“Our dear AStrid is back to sneaking around again, hm?” Ikithon looks to Eodwulf. At least he hadn’t strayed much further than their entry way. What he was referring to though… Astrid stomach twists in a more familiar way as she tries to count back all the things she could have done to earn that. Beside the obvious.

“We’re not each other's keepers.” Except when they were. It had always been dizzying trying to keep up with when they were being treated as a unit or individuals. Astrid imagines that too was on purpose.

Ikithon grins at this. “She didn’t tell you where she was going.”

Eodwulf shrugged. “I wasn’t home.”

“Would you like to know where she’s been?”

“She’d tell me if she wanted.”

“I thought I’d go see about Bren myself.” Astrid finally speaks up.

“Did you?” For a second Eodwulf cracks. It was probably what Ikithon was after anyway.

It hurts to have to say, “No.”

There is no such emotion in Ikithon’s sigh. He pinches the bridge of his nose like this is becoming a drain for him. “I had thought the two of you had earned the rest, evidently I was mistaken and I am beginning to get tired of Astrid’s methods of amusing herself.”

“It won’t happen again, sir.” She offers meekly.

“No,” There’s a look exchanged between them. A wordless conversation that says he knows that’s a lie, but if she’d like to continue playing this game… “It won’t. I will have use for the two of you soon enough, provided Astrid can keep from straying any more than she already has.”

“Yes, sir.” Astrid avoids looking him in the eye. He knew the mere idea that she’d slipped up was distressing enough. He’d used it against her plenty of times before.

“Thank you, sir.” Eodwulf reaches for the door. Despite his pause, Ikithon takes the hint.

After Eodwulf shuts the door again there is a long tense moment, far beyond Ikithon’s silhouette falling out of sight from their window. She’s still certain that had been the purpose in walking her home. It’s the sort of thinking that Eodwulf would call paranoid, but he couldn’t prove her wrong. Bren would have at least humored her, even if in the end he would tell her it didn’t matter what their master’s reasonings were, so long as they reacted accordingly.

“Why would you go without me?” Eodwulf asks quietly and without moving from watching the door.

“Because.” Astrid doesn’t either, but she does fidget in place. “You were busy.”

“You could have said-“

“No, I couldn’t have.” She starts just as even, if not cold, as ever, but it’s one more ‘could have’ than she can take. “I didn’t plan to go, I don’t have some grand conspiracy to ruin everything for everyone! I’m alone all day this stupid house that only you ever wanted! And he knows! He won’t give us anything to do because he’s punishing me for- for I don’t even know what!” She thinks she knows, but then it all starts coming back to being paranoid. And with no one to talk these things out with, she couldn’t begin to discern which way was up.

“Geez Astrid…”

“I’m sorry.” She squeaks, unable to hold whatever mess of emotions in any longer. She’d cried in front of Ikithon once, at least, that was the time that mattered. Never again. After a while the rule had bled over to Eodwulf and Bren. She’d shed a few tears every now and again, but she’d never broken down. “I’m just- I’m just disappointed.”

“Yeah.” He sounds resigned. Maybe disappointed too. When he pulls her into a hug, Astrid doesn’t bother fighting him. She balls her fists in the front of his shirt and let’s herself cry. Soon after, she feels her legs swept out from under her as Eodwulf picks her up to carry her up the stairs.

“Don’t do that!” She still can’t seem to stop herself from crying and her words are more of a wail. “I’m alright.”

“You heard the man, I gotta keep you on a shorter leash.” Eodwulf flashes a shit eating grin that almost has her cracking a smile in return. She elbows him in the chest instead.

It’s hard to remain angry with Eodwulf. Mostly because she isn’t and she never was to begin with, but the way he tucks her into bed and a bit later brings her dinner as well is both infuriating and nearly enough for Astrid to begin crying again. She doesn’t, but she does continue to frown down into her soup as Eodwulf gently sits on the edge of the bed.

“You want to tell me the rest now?”

Astrid shrugs. She doesn’t, but now that Ikithon brought it up she has to, to make him wrong. “I got caught.”

“He didn’t say anything about Bren?”

“No change.” She smirks because she’s fairly certain that had been a lie. Or at the very least, when something did change, she’d be the last to know. “I think he was just on his way back.”

“What were you going to do,” Eodwulf shifts positions so that he’s laying in bed with his chin resting in his hand. “just… show up?”

“I guess.” Astrid shrugs again.

“You think teleportation is safe still, with, you know?”

She gives him a flat look. “And if I’d taken to walking out there you’d be upset with me for not using a circle.”

“You can just rest, you know?”

“So can you.”

There’s a wordless acknowledgement that some nerve has been struck, but rather than deal with it Eodwolf sits up and looks away while Astrid returns to eating.

“I didn’t mean to leave you alone.” Eodwulf changes his mind, though he still scowls at some spot off the other side of the bed. “You could go out for less… Ikithon adjacent reasons though. And if you did tell me, I could come. I mean, you really shouldn’t-“

“Don’t.” She doesn’t want to keep fighting, but it hasn’t been like they’d had a chance to talk about this before anyway. “You can’t start treating me any different. Especially when we actually have work again. It’s just going to make us look bad with you wasting all your time and energy on me. Or the baby.” They already had, in her mind, but that had been her fault. She’d let herself get careless. Bren, the baby, just the simple act of being caught sneaking into the academy… Astrid was better than this, she knew it.

“You want me around or not, Astrid?” He sounds more agitated than before and she knows that’s only fair

“Yes! See, this is the problem. He’s testing us-“

“Not everything’s a fucking test.”

“Well this is! I should have told you where I was going because we should have been talking because we shouldn’t let Bren rattle us and how does he know we won’t choke like that under more pressure? After Bren… And me.”

“You didn’t choke.” He’s still scowling at nothing, but the edge in his voice is lost.

“We have to do better.” Mostly she.

Eodwulf huffs. Now he looks over at her, opening his mouth to say… something, but then thinking better of it.

“I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Now he just sounds tired. Astrid knows there’s millions of reasons why, but she still feels she must be chief among them.

“I don’t make things easier either.”

He doesn’t argue. In her mind that’s enough confirmation. Astrid sets the bowl aside and takes her turn to sulk. She crosses her arms over the subtle bump in her middle and almost begins to change the subject before Eodwulf beats her to it.

“Should I marry you?”

Astrid blinks. “What?”

“Should I marry you?”

“Why?”

“People are talking.” The bitterness with which he says it tells her it’s probably akin to those other implications Ikithon had made. And why she hadn’t shared them.

“People always talk. Especially about us.” Mostly it had just been their peers. She’d been grateful for being pulled more and more from their typical academy classes, after the three of them had sorted themselves out. She still knew the adults talked, but they at least kept it in private. Usually.

“I guess…” Eodwulf sighs. “I just thought if it helped make people leave you alone.”

“I just said no special treatment.”

“Well Bren’s not here, so I can’t ask him too.”

“Would you?” They’d never talked about it, not in exact words. She’d always assumed it was due to the legality of it all and their age, but this called to mind the long drawn out game of talking in pairs before they’d finally settled on the three of them being the three of them.

Eodwulf shrugs but this feels like a more normal difficulty with emotions kind of shrug. “I love him. I love you. It sounded better than snapping someone’s neck about it.”

Astrid allows herself a small smile and scoots over to hug Eodwulf’s arm. This felt better. Not normal, but better. “I’m a big girl, Wulfie. I can snap all my own necks.”


	6. but you're the space between

Bren is not returned to them that week. Nor is there any communication from Master Ikithon. It was stupid to hope about Bren, Astrid knew this, but it was one both she and Eodwulf had shared none the less. It’s a timid and awkward thing that goes beyond just speaking of Bren. No matter the gaps they leave for him, for when he returned - because he would, they wouldn’t let the other believe any less - life still went on. Without him.

Astrid feels it first hand and she hates it. There’s no waiting for things to stop falling apart with a baby on the way. Or waiting for Bren. She knows she shouldn’t and maybe she doesn’t really hate it, but it still takes days of nagging on Eodwulf’s part before she’s plucked up the courage to see after a midwife.

Technically, she’d started before then. She knew how things would have gone back in Blumenthal. Not that it was even remotely an option now. She knew that if Ikithon had offered any help she would have wanted to refuse, though she wouldn’t in the end. It was probably why he hadn’t mentioned anything at all. And after Eodwulf made good on his threat about anyone speaking behind her back, the Shimmer Ward was equally out of the question.

The hole in the wall apothecary tucked into the Mosaic Ward reminds Astrid of home. She doesn’t ask it, but she has a hunch Evi originated from Blumenthal as well. She doesn’t say a lot of things. Like why she would be there. Why she would be asking these sorts of questions. Evi doesn’t let on, though Astrid can’t imagine how the older woman couldn’t just guess. She thinks that’s why she feels alright going back, even if it still takes Eodwulf’s convincing.

“I could go with you.” He at least tries to make it sound like an offer and not an insistence. They’d already had this argument once. She couldn’t complain he was never there and then keep pushing him away. It wasn’t fair.

“You may walk with me.” She counters, then feels the need to explain his disappointment away. “It’s women stuff, Wulf. You’ll get all grossed out and make faces and nobody will take me seriously.”

She hates the way it feels like telling Master Ikithon all over again, but then, she hates the sympathy too. Of course Evi had known, of course she’d hoped Astrid would return. And yes, Astrid knew she was awfully young, and yes she knew this was very serious indeed. And no, her mother didn’t know. Her mother was dead.

By the end of it she almost wished she’d let Eodwulf come in with her. Almost. The harried look on his face just from sitting outside and the way he jumps to his feet at the sight of her tells Astrid she made the right choice in the end.

“I’m fine!” Though that’s only half of what he’s worried about and she knows it. “The baby’s fine! Everything’s… normal.” She doesn’t trust that word anymore, but Evi had said it enough times she supposed she had to believe it. Astrid links arms with Eodwulf and sets them walking towards home.

“What else? You were in there for like an hour.”

“Well, yes, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we’re having a whole human person, it can get a bit complicated.”

He gives her a flat look as if to tell her to knock it off. She knows she should. That for someone who felt so miserably alone she also wasn’t behaving very inviting. Astrid sighs and starts again.

“She’s alright I guess. Evi, I mean.” She shrugs, but she can’t shake the feeling that her mother should have been there. Now more than anything it feels like her plan had gone and flipped itself. “She says it’s likely to be a girl, but I don’t know… Divinations always been a little iffy if you ask me. And I am allowed to cast as many spells as I like within reason, so there.”

Eodwulf laughs. She’s sure he’ll just ignore the last part. “So now do you have any thoughts on names?”

Astrid’s expression sours. “Do you?”

“Why does that bother you so much?” He snaps back but hasn’t lost his good humor entirely. “She has to have a name eventually.”

“We still don’t know for absolute certain it’s a girl. You can be wrong about this stuff.” Astrid continues sulking.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” She cringes because she’s caught herself pushing again. Because she doesn’t want to be saying this, least of all having to let Eodwulf know she’s thought any of this either. “I’m just saying, we don’t know. I mean, what if we get all attached and then... And then something happens.”

“You said everything was fine.”

“It is! I’m just… I dont know. I’m just talking.”

“Fine.” It wasn’t. She could already feel him getting frustrated. “Then I’m just asking a question, are you regretting all this?”

She doesn’t know how to answer that, so she asks her own question. “Do you think our parents regretted us?”

Eodwulf stills, she doesn’t think he was expecting that, and takes a moment to consider his answer. “I don’t think we gave them the chance.”

“We were supposed to make things better for them.” At least, that’s what she’d promised. She knew Bren had felt the same, maybe even more so than herself. Eodwulf they had never been able to pin down exactly. He was too independent for that.

“Then they shouldn’t have betrayed us.” There is no love lost in that statement. If Astrid didn’t know him so well she would have read it as emotionless, but she knew some things hurt too much for even him.

“I still sort of wish she was here…” Astrid bites down on her now quivering lip and her grip around Eodwulf’s arm tightens. She’s not sure she’s ever felt so small.

Eodwulf sighs. She thinks maybe he still sounds annoyed, but he pets her hair and leans in to whisper, “You’re going to be a good mom, Sassa.”

“You don’t know that. How am I supposed to know what I’m doing?” She knows that’s still pushing, but she can’t help it.

“You just called divination bullshit, what do you want from me?” He laughs weakly then sighs again. “Look at you, you’ve cried more in two weeks than I’ve ever seen in my life, of which I have known you nearly the entire time. You care too much to fail.”

She wants to argue because since when has caring ever gotten them anything? But she’s tired of it and so is he. “You just want me to stop crying so much.” She stops leaning so hard on him so she can wipe away her tears and tries to smile.

He offers one in return, still a little weak. “It is very upsetting, yes. And frankly a little scary.”

Astrid rolls her eyes and bids them to finish walking home.

It only takes Eodwulf half as long to convince her to simply walk in to the sanatorium. Or catch a ride. Astrid had argued that - if he wouldn’t let her try - he could still at least try and draw a circle for them.

“We’ve never practiced that on our own before and you know I’m no good with that stuff.” She did. She and Bren had gotten fairly skilled at forging Eodwulf’s handwriting because of it. They wouldn’t let him fall behind. “Besides, if we just pop up it becomes a thing. At least this looks sort of inconspicuous.” He’d found when supplies were being run up to the asylum, by wagon. Already friendlied up with the driver enough that they could tag along, she assumes few to no questions asked. It’s what gets her to agree in the end.

And for a while it feels normal. Like the three of them stealing away a day from the academy. Beside the gap where Bren should have been and an acute awareness that maybe her days of hitching rides on the backs of wagons should be over soon. Astrid brushes away the latter, feeling as though she’s thought on that more than enough. The first is harder to sit with, given the nature of their outing.

“What if we make him worse?” The thought finally slips out well into their ride to Vergessons. She almost hopes Eodwulf doesn’t hear it, but of course he does.

“I don’t think we can.”

Astrid sits up a little straighter, preparing to actually have a conversation about this. “But what if we do?”

“I thought the what ifs were my job.” Eodwulf growls, clearly uninterested.

She doesn’t have much to say to that. Nothing that could be unpacked now. It had been an interesting shift to watch, Eodwulf’s worries just turned to anger more often than not. Not at her. But she worried now for the day he should have thought before taking a swing at someone.

Astrid fidgets with her coat. It’s Bren’s really and some of her still wonders if her wearing it will bother him in his state, but Wulf needed his and her own she worried showed a little too much if she was going to remain committed to not altering her appearance with magic. She scratches at the scar on her neck, worrying anew about that as well.

“What if he blames us…”

“Astrid…” Eodwulf whines in that way that means he just feels bad now. “Do you just… not want to go? You don’t have to.”

“I want to go.” She says it with a little more conviction than she honestly thinks she has. “Besides, if I back out now and Master Ikithon finds out I don’t even have plausible deniability. At least we take the fall together.”

“We all should have gone crazy then…” Eodwulf sighs so quietly Astrid is sure she wasn’t meant to hear it, but she does.

“Bren’s not crazy.” She warns and he doesn’t argue. They don’t speak of him again for the entire ride there.

It isn’t the first time either of them have visited Vergessens Sanatorium, but only once before to the main building. Astrid walks the familiar gravel path from one of the towers, where the supplies were being left, with her hands in Bren’s coat pockets. At the fork up to the mansion though, she links arms with Eodwulf again. He doesn’t say anything, but she can forgive him for that. She thinks it might be even more sobering in the daylight.

The inside is nothing but a blur in her memory. They’d gotten as far as the foyer, helping to drag Bren inside while he raged against them. Orderlies had been able to subdue him from there and in the moment Astrid had been grateful.

Now, she scratches at the scar on her neck as she looks around. She knows he won’t just be there, waiting for them. It’s eerily silent in the foyer and empty in the bit of hall she can see beyond.

Astrid and Eodwulf exchange a look. Eodwulf almost dares break the silence before a woman steps into the foyer nearly soundlessly. Her brow creases as she looks over the two of them.

“Can I help you?”

“We’ve come to check up on Bren.” Astrid hates how meek she sounds and then she hates that she feels the need to clarify who. As if Bren were forgettable. “Bren Ermendrud.”

The woman gives them another once over and something seems to click in her mind. “I see. I’m afraid he’s not being allowed visitors right now.”

“Well when might he be?” Eodwulf’s tone is already tense. Astrid fidgets with her coat some more out of fear of him blowing it for them, but if the woman minds it doesn’t show.

“I can’t say.”

Eodwulf grumbles to himself, but Astrid cuts in before it can cause them any grief. “Can you at least tell us how he’s doing? Please.”

She hesitates, but then softens . “He’s spent most of his time sleeping.”

“Night terrors?” Eodwulf asks, suddenly soft. Astrid doesn’t like that she knows why.

“Some, but that’s very common in cases like this.”

“So there’s others?” She shouldn’t wish this on anyone else, but she’s tentatively relieved.

“Yes.”

“And how quickly did they recover?” Eodwulf beats her to it.

“It’s very dependent on many different factors.”

“Like what?” He’s right back to sounding angry again and Astrid sighs.

“I understand you’re concerned, but the archmage has made it very clear-“

“And we work for the archmage!” Eodwulf raises his voice and even with his coat sleeves over them, Astrid hears the small static pop of the gems in his arms sparking.

“Come on, Wulf.” She gives his coat sleeve a small tug. “It’s not worth it.”

“What do you mean not worth it?”

“It’s not her fault, you’re going to bash in the wrong face.” Astrid’s eyes dart to the woman. While she’d paled at the idea, she still wasn’t saying anything about letting them back there. Or up there. Or where ever Bren was.

Eodwulf looks between the two of them, there’s a flash of recognition she hopes means he knows what she’d just tried, then growls again and stalks back outside.

Astrid lingers a second before asking one last question. “Do you think you could at least tell him that Astrid and Eodwulf tried to visit?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Without telling the archmage we were here?”

The woman nods. Astrid isn’t sure she can trust it, but she doesn’t have much else she can do regardless.

Eodwulf had sat himself down to sulk on the mansion’s front steps. Astrid is more than willing to join him.

“That was bullshit.” He says and she hears sparks again.

“I know.”

“If all he’s doing is sleeping anyway, we could at least look in.”

“I know.”

“Why aren’t you upset?” When Eodwulf turns to face her it feels like an accusation.

“I am! I’m just… tired. And hungry. We didn’t think too far beyond getting here.” They’d always gotten away with things like that before, but of course now it would be different.

“I guess not…” That at least gave him pause. “Sorry. I just…”

“I know.” Astrid leans into him a little harder and for a moment they just sit. She imagines they’re both lost in similar thought, except for the fact that maybe Eodwulf isn’t secretly grateful not to face Bren just yet. She thinks maybe she hates herself a little for that.

Eventually though, Astrid feels she has to break their silence before something else did. “Will you let me use their teleportation circle?” She doesn’t want to argue, but she’s not sure either of them can hold it together for the entire ride back.

Eodwulf sighs in defeat before answering. “I guess.”

By way of thank you, she leans up and kisses him on the cheek.


	7. you be the lamb, i'll be the slaughter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> new username who dis?  
> I've decided to move back to my old tumblr for fandom stuff, so... perpetualnovelboyfriend.tumblr.com for even more blumentrio yelling!
> 
> TW here specifically for Astrid disassociating and panicking and some mentions of skin picking  
> this chapter honestly sucks, I swear it's gonna lighten up soon

“He could just tell us things now. He knows that right?” Eodwulf tosses a letter down on the table between them for Astrid to read. Some poor academy student turned page had come and gone, leaving them the summons to dinner.

“Do you think we got caught?” Astrid asks even before she’s finished reading. The dread that threads through her chest feels familiar and she’s grateful for that. She’d change her mind later, if they were punished, but for now it felt normal when so little ever did anymore.

“No. It won’t be about Bren either.” Eodwulf’s mood hadn’t improved since being denied entry to the sanatorium. If anything, it’d only gotten worse.

Astrid huffs, stretching her arms over the top of the table and pushing the letter with her. “I hope it’s work. I’m bored.”

Eodwulf grumbles something about what she could be doing and even if he means well it’s best for the both of them that she simply ignore it.

“I think I miss dinners.” Astrid continues reflecting. She means it. And not just because she feels like they’ve been living like magical vagrants, prestidigitating their cooking better. “Do you think he’s invited anyone else?”

“You would…” is all Eodwulf mumbles in response before continuing about his day. Astrid scowls after him as he leaves, but she doesn’t press it.

At the very least, she’s grateful it keeps him unaware of the fact she chooses to use a glamour again. Whether it was about Bren or Volstrucker business, Astrid didn’t feel any reminders of her condition would serve them well that night.

By all appearances it is just dinner. Just the three of them. Almost like old times. There is no mention of Bren, no matter how many glances she or Eodwulf sneak toward the seat where he should have been. Or rather, Astrid should have been.

It’s not lost on her, the change in seating. The right hand of the archmage. With no acknowledgement she’s left to wonder on her own whether it was born of calculated choice or simple practicality. Maybe both. Astrid chooses to ignore it, as best she can. It’s a fine line to walk - as most things seemed to be now - between finally having something to talk about beside the baby or Bren, even if it was just petty politics, and the fact that Bren wasn’t there to counter her or rein her in as the case may be.

Ikithon never argues, he merely states facts. Eodwulf tries, once in his still dower mood to grumble something about the state of the Zemni Fields, and again to nudge her foot from underneath the table when he thinks she’s said too much in regards to a certain farming village’s allegiance to the empire.

Astrid shoots a look back, turning Ikithon’s attentions as well.

“What’s the matter now, Eodwulf?”

“Nothing, sir.” But that had never been an acceptable answer and they both knew it too well by now. “I simply thought we might have more pressing matters to attend to than all this small talk.”

“Can I not simply enjoy the company students before sending them off into the world without me?”

“I think what Eodwulf means to ask is if you might have given any more thought to when that might be exactly.”

He looks between them with not quite a grin but his own brand of amusement, because of course he had. He thought of everything. “There is another small matter, a gift I’d like to give the two of you first.”

There is a pause as the two consider their last ‘gift’, before Ikithon seemingly changes the subject.

“How have you been feeling, Astrid?”

“Alright, I guess.” She fidgets in her seat and maybe that’s what gives it away. The spell altering her appearance drops. It’s still only in subtle ways anything has changed, but to Astrid it’s painfully obvious. She winces, just a little.

“That must be tiresome to keep up.”

“I just thought- I had worried some of the delay was because of the baby.”

“And you’d hoped I would forget based on one little spell?” Ikithon laughs. He doesn’t even have to say it because she’s heard it for years and years before. Stupid girl. “And how is your little secret?”

Astrid stares ahead at the table, lest anything else betray her. It’s not lost on her, the use of the word secret. “She seems to be doing well.”

“A girl, then.” Ickithon’s tone returns to unreadable as ever. Astrid maintains her suspicions though. He’s disappointed.

“That’s what I’ve been told.”

“Here’s hoping she’s as every bit as clever as her mother.” Eodwulf finally interjects.

Astrid looks up. Any hint of his sour mood is suddenly gone and replaced by a familiar softness. She knows exactly what Wulf is trying for her and it makes it all the sweeter. “I would hope she surpasses me, I think.”

Ikithon nods approvingly, “As she should.”

Astrid feels ill at ease the rest of the evening. Even after Eodwulf coaxes the particulars of what they’ll be doing out of their master, she can only hope he’s doing a better job of retaining the information than she knows she is.

“Now then,” Ickithon suddenly pushing back from the table and standing causes Astrid to flinch. “If you will follow me…”

Of course they do. Familiar as they are with the estate, dread begins to pull at Astrid by the first turn down the hallway though she can’t articulate why just yet. By the time they are stood atop the staircase down to the basement, she has Eodwulf’s hand in a vice grip.

Her eyes flick up to his face, not that there’s anything he could have done about it. They hadn’t been down there in months. She thought they’d been good.

If Ikithon notices her panic, it doesn’t show. Of course it wouldn’t. He walks them down into his most private of laboratories without so much as a glance behind.

“Here, come see.” He stops at one of the workspaces, some journal already splayed open on the desk top. Astrid still clings to Eodwulf’s arm, peering around him as she looks.

Shorthand notes about residuum scrawl across the pages, accompanied by technical sketches of what she first mistakes for glyphs. There is something to the calculated pattern of lines and angles though, she can already see it.

“Wouldn’t this defeat the purpose of ramming gems into our arms?” Eodwulf asks. She can’t blame him for the bite that’s crept back to his voice.

“The intention would be to replace them, make the two of you a bit more inconspicuous.”

“I think they look more intimidating than a silly tattoo.”

Ikithon sighs. “Keep them if you wish. I’d be interested to see how both interact.”

Astrid can’t tell from looks if that’s quite what Eodwulf had been angling for, but he doesn’t continue to argue.

“Won’t removing them hurt?” Astrid asks barely above a whisper. She doesn’t remember their placement in rational thought, but her arms already ache with memory.

Ikithon sighs. Somehow already tired and disappointed by their questions.

“I raised you better than to shy away from potential pain, Astrid. I also would have thought you in particular would appreciate the more refined appearance.”

It was petty of her. And stupid. But Astrid had lamented the protrusions from her arms more than once. And of course he knew.

She doesn’t say anything more. Allowing Ikithon to finish his explanation of details and whatever else he’s found to justify any of this. She finds her mind drifting further than when they had been up at the table.

Astrid eyes the vial of black liquid, shimmering green when the light hits it just right. “That’s so much…” She wonders where he’s gotten it at all, but knows better than to ask.

“Some of the delay.” Ikithon explains regardless. He swirls the bottle again, then uncorks it and pours a sizable amount considering the contents into a small glass. “I had also hoped to run something of a third experiment.”

Astrid is certain all of her locks in place at the suggestion. Experiments were never good news for them. She’s sure the only reason she can stomach the idea of the tattoos is because it’s similar, maybe even less painful, than their initial ‘project’.

“What’s that?” Eodwulf asks for her.

Ikithon slides the shot of residuum closer to Astrid. “Drink this.”

“But why?” She laughs involuntarily. It sounded ridiculous and somehow all the more dangerous for it.

“It seemed the least invasive way of introducing it to our little volstrucker early.”

“Wouldn’t that still be dangerous?” She remembered, beside the aches and pains, how out of control they’d all felt afterwards. For a trio of prodigy mages, the inability to be certain of what they were casting might have been one of the more traumatic aspects… And that was when they were younger and inexperienced.

“I suppose I would avoid certain spells then, if I were you.” Of course he’d thought of it. And of course that was his solution.

“Then how will I work?”

“You had claimed to me this wouldn’t interfere.”

“You never said…” The excuse dies because she already knows it’s a stupid one. Of course he would have pushed for something. She should have known.

“It’s only residuum, Astrid. You’ve been exposed to it in far greater quantities. Who’s to say this would even be enough to affect her at all in this way?”

“Exactly! She hasn’t been, she hasn’t even been born yet. How are we going to know anything?”

“Then we will have learned a very valuable lesson for next time.” He sounds impatient again as he grinds out the words between his teeth.

“You’re asking an awful lot of her, don’t you think?” Eodwulf sounds distant despite standing right next to her. She still hasn’t let go of his arm even once.

“If she didn’t think she could handle this, she should have thought her actions through accordingly.”

It’s bait. She knows it’s bait, but she still takes it. “I can handle it.”

“Astrid…” Eodwulf doesn’t bother to be subtle with his concern.

“I would just remind you, sir, that if I lose this baby there will not be a next time.” It may just have been a threat, but it was one she hoped Ikithon believed she would make good on. “If you are confident though that she and I will weather any pain from this and be the better for it, I do not object.”

Ikithon feigns hurt. At least, she can’t imagine it being genuine. If the man had ever expressed concern for another being, she hadn’t been party to it. “What sort of monster do you take me for? Forgive me, Astrid, I forget you must be particularly emotional right now.” There’s a knowingness in his smile that makes her blood boil all the hotter. “Perhaps we’d have better results after you’ve gotten yourself better under control.”

Eodwulf squeezes her hand, a more subtle warning to take the out while she can.

Astrid swallows her pride to answer, “I’ll work on it, sir.”

She fumes silently as Eodwulf goes first. First pacing, then seating herself on the workspace beside the book and the small glass of residuum. She still swings her legs then, trying to quell the desire to be anywhere but there. When that isn’t enough, she rolls up her sleeves and begins to pick at the crystals in her arms. They were about to be bloodied anyway. That she remembers. The smell of blood and something like petrichor. Her throat itches with the memory of screaming it raw. It hadn’t mattered how quickly he’d promised to work, Astrid still remembered it as a small eternity.

When Eodwulf calls her name, she jumps. A look of concern passes over his face, but he moves on for both their sakes, holding his arm up to her with a forced sense of pride. “What do you think?”

“You’re bleeding.” Astrid jumps up and almost reflexively casts to begin healing him. There’s a disapproving grunt from Ickithon and Eodwulf stops her by taking hold of her wrist and pulling her close.

“It’s fine, Sassa.” He whispers, then whirls her around to help her into the chair. She’s grateful for it, knowing if given the chance she’d balk on her own. “Just hold still.”


	8. it would be a shame if you misspoke now, somehow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for stitches and the questionable removal of them

Astrid wakes in Eodwulf’s bed. For one small eternity she is convinced she’s awoken in his academy dorm, scratchy woolen blanket and all. That Bren and Wulf will come through the door together any second to tease her for oversleeping. That the ache in her arms is still one of potential. A temporary dark patch on their path to a brighter future. For the empire, of course.  
But no crystals catch when she stirs. Astrid lays a bandaged arm over her stomach and sits up in Wulf’s townhome bedroom. She scowls down at the bandages, only right about one thing. Eodwulf enters soon after, but he is alone.  
“Morning.” He offers barely above a whisper, walking on eggshells towards the bed. “How’re you feeling?”  
Astrid remains focused on her bandaged arms. “What did he do?”  
“Just what he said he would.”  
“You knocked me out.” She hopes so, at least. If not then she’d simply passed out on her own. She would have liked to be stronger than that. She needed to be.  
Eodwulf nods, then settles into bed along with her. He rests his head on her shoulder and an arm over her middle. Despite the soreness that came with moving her arm, she brings a hand to his head to gently card through his hair.  
“Thank you.” He really shouldn’t have. She wonder if Ikithon had noticed and what ire Eodwulf had caught for it. He’d never tell.  
“I’m sorry. I should have said you be the one to keep them in. He asked me to help. It felt like pulling teeth.”  
“Nothing a bit of cure wounds can’t fix.” They hadn’t been able to use it the last time. She hadn’t learned it yet. Bren had run a fever for days afterwards. She holds Wulf’s head a little closer to her at the memory. “I should get back to potion making as well…”  
They would have needed them regardless, for the job. But if it were about to come down to being unable to cast for the sake of the baby… Astrid would just have to learn to do better.  
“You won’t go through with it though, right?”  
“Hm?”  
“Even if you quit casting for a bit, wouldn’t it still be dangerous?”  
“I don’t know.” She puts a hand back to her stomach. She’d forgotten to ask when there might be movement to feel, not that she’d ever admit to herself she might be excited to feel it. Asking about the effects of shotgunning straight residuum though was entirely out of the question. Not if she still wanted Evi still alive when Astrid needed her.  
Eodwulf laces his fingers with hers and the tingling of a healing spell - amplified by the residuum in her skin - runs up her arm.  
“Stop it.” She frowns, but her chiding is gentle.  
“No.” He tilts his head and presses a soft kiss onto the side of her neck.  
“What did I say about not wasting spells on me?”  
“It’s not a waste. You said we have to do better, we can’t exactly do that if one of us isn’t functioning.”  
“Now who thinks it’s a test…” She wonders now if that had been it. If it wasn’t so much about the baby, but about imposing a handicap - the kind Eodwulf seemed to think the baby was anyway, because of course Ikithon would know even that - to see how they would handle it.  
Eodwulf’s breath is warm against her collarbone as he huffs.  
“You disagree?”  
His answer isn’t immediate, but his sour mood sweeps in like a thunderstorm. “I just wish you’d stop playing into it.”  
“Into what?”  
“Into his games. And I know, alright? We have to, you have to, but… Not with the baby.”  
“She’s supposed to be a volstrucker too, Wulf. It’ll happen someday.”  
“It doesn’t have to happen now though. You said it, she’s not even born yet. He’s going to push this too far. And it wasn’t even about that, you don’t think so, I know it.”  
“He won’t.” He would. She knew that. He’d already pushed one of them too far. “If I argue then he has to prove a point, if he thinks I won’t fight him then he won’t do anything too dangerous because we’d both lose something. I need him to think I would let him, it’s… leverage.”  
Eodwulf sits up abruptly, scowling down at her. “Did you just hear yourself? This is what you meant by worrying about getting attached, isn’t it?”  
“No!” Maybe. Not that she can explain that now with his hackles raised. “Please, Wulf. Please can we not argue today.”  
“I’m not going to sit by while you use Bren’s kid as a bargaining chip.”  
“It’s more mine than his.” She snips. She knows it’s stupid even before she says it.  
“Then act like it.” He snaps back all the harsher. “You wanted to be somebody’s mother so bad, protect her.”  
It wasn’t like her’s ever had. The thought is errant, not one Astrid had even put to words until that moment… but it was true. If Astrid’s mother had cared anything for her, she would have been stronger. Better. She would have found any way to keep her from the position Astrid had found herself in.  
“Gods, you don’t even know.” Her face grows stern and any impulse to cry is replaced by cold conviction. “I am protecting her! I’m protecting all of us, all the damn time and none of you ever even think! You think I want to be some heartless bitch all the time? You think I want to even entertain the idea that I might…” She can’t say it. She hopes he knows that. She hopes he knows that it’s always been the case for him and Bren as well.  
Eodwulf doesn’t say anything. Not for a long moment, to the point she thinks he’ll simply leave with his own misunderstandings.  
“You’re not heartless.” He finally says, he sounds tired again. The kind of tired she’s sure is her fault and that no amount of sleep is ever going to fix.  
Astrid fights a weak smile anyway, “But you do think I’m a bitch.”  
He huffs and for a moment she’s worried the humor was lost on him, but he smiles back. “Yeah, but you’re our bitch.”  
Another long stretch of silence passes before Eodwulf continues. “I trust you, Astrid.”  
She wants to tell him he really shouldn’t. Even if that’s all she’d ever wanted to be for either of them. She’s still not sure she can give herself that same luxury.  
“It’s just… I guess I never had to watch you playing those games as much before. It was always Bren. I knew what strings he’d pull. And he’s not here and there I go letting him distract me again, right?”  
Astrid finds herself without words for the hurt she knew they both shared. All she can offer is a sad, sympathetic smile.

  
He tells her to rest. It takes Astrid until she hears his footsteps descend down the stairs before she’s peeling her bandages away. Still in bed, she figures that it counts as resting as much as she can.  
Much the same as Eodwulf and the drawings from Ikithon’s journal, blocky geometric spirals cover both her forearms. The only difference is the multiple sections of stitches where pure residuum crystal once jutted from her arms. The ones on the arm Eodwulf hadn’t healed still weeped slightly. She brushes fingers over the swollen skin and finishes the job.  
Astrid winces as her skin knits back together around the stitches. Ikithon had always preferred they healed without the aid of magic. It made sense. If they could just be strong enough, rise above and beyond any physical pain, then their magical efforts could be better placed somewhere else.  
“What will you do when forced to choose between taking care of yourself or accomplishing what needs to be done for the empire?” Ikithon had asked after her choice to learn the spell. The dabble in alchemy had served him well enough, she had a knack for it, it seemed… But though he wouldn’t outright forbid anything, she knew he disapproved.  
“I should hope I do better than to be in that position.” Astrid had tried laughing it off. She couldn’t tell if it had been an acceptable response or not. He simply moved on.  
“And if it came down to you or your partners?”  
Astrid remembers the distinct feeling that it wasn’t a fair question. She had been twelve. “Whichever of us seemed the most likely to be able to carry on after, that’s who I’d choose.” She had thought it was the right answer, if not a good one.  
“And what if you found you’d made the wrong call? That you’d let your personal feelings for them get in the way?”  
She couldn’t quite remember what she’d said to that.  
With the wounds closed Astrid begins picking at the stitches until it becomes clear she’s better off finding a pair of scissors. The black ink still shimmers green when it catches the light. Again she finds herself missing the way the magic humming in her arms used to feel like anticipation and not dread. Wondering if that was how she should have felt for the baby and how unfair it was that she couldn’t dare.  
She gets up from Eodwulf’s bed and pads across the hall to her own room. After sitting at her vanity and pulling scissors from it’s drawer, Astrid begins snipping the tiny threads, pulling the bits out and closing the holes in her skin as she went.  
Once finished, Astrid flexes her wrists experimentally. She hates to admit it does feel nicer to her than having a small rock garden in either arm. So she won’t. Her reflection ahead of her catches her attention and she pauses, eyes immediately drawn to the burn scars she’d left.  
If she let it, her mind could have wandered back to that night. To the spells she could have cast. The ones she did, but shouldn’t have. But she doesn’t. She pushes back from the vanity and moves to the rocking chair Eodwulf had dragged home for her.  
“I’m sorry,” She whispers as she begins to rock. She hasn’t done it before, but she’d thought about it. It feels every bit as silly as she’d thought it might, but beside that it felt necessary. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask a great deal of you.” Ikithon had said similar to the three of them. She thinks it’s a small miracle she doesn’t choke on the words. “But I promise, kätzchen, I’ll do all that and more for you.”


	9. And you'll be better, and you'll be smarter, and more grown up, and a better daughter

Astrid shakes her wrist and blood flies from her gloved hand. She sighs, more inconvenienced than anything else, and removes the rest of it from her clothes with magic. She had considered trying to go without, just on principle, but that had lasted for about as long as it took for their interrogations to begin.

Eodwulf takes a step back from the body, sucking in air through his teeth. “Did not plan on that to bleed so much.”

Stepping over the puddle of blood, Astrid moves in to inspect her partner’s work. They’d only had him for a little over a week, only given the barest of descriptions about who or what he was. Astrid was still inclined to believe it was more a test than any real service to the empire.

“Pity.” She clucks as she tilt’s their victim’s chin back for a better look. She is genuinely remorseful, if only for the mess they’d made. Maybe the fact that she couldn’t have made it last a little longer. The need to prove this wasn’t a mistake still ate at her. Without Bren, with the baby. She thinks otherwise they’d done alright. Some information had been peppered in there with the begging and the screaming.

“You alright?”

Astrid shrugs, still primarily focused on the corpse. To Wulf’s credit he had managed not to fuss over her directly in front of their project. There were multiple ways the two of them had simply fallen in line with one another through this interrogation that made Astrid feel that sense of normalcy she’d been missing. 

Evenings were different now though. Longer. Filled with questions neither of them had answers to and a distinct feeling that their missing third would have had some insight they lacked. Though they’d long since had their talks of how to live with themselves as Volstruckers, they’d never discussed a scenario without Bren.

“Sassa, he’s not going to say anymore. He’s dead.” Eodwulf calls from a bit further back. She can hear the clinking of his tools as he presumably begins to clean up.

“I know.” She clears away the puddle of blood with more magic before stepping back again. “Do you think we should have brought him back again?”

Technically, they’d lost him on the second day. The panic would probably be funny eventually, but even a week later Astrid feels the familiar prickle of anxiety.

“Not our fault that’s all he had to say.” Eodwulf shrugs. “If we’ve really missed anything, other people have ways…”

Astrid hums, somewhere in the range of doubtful. As much as she believes this is just busy work, there’s still more than enough riding on it for her.

“You never answered my question.”

“Which was that?” She had heard it.

“You alright? You, specifically, not asking about anyone or anything else.” Eodwulf hedges with a small smirk. It was a stupid work around, but she supposed it fit the terms of their agreement. He wouldn’t bring up the baby outside of the house unless she brought it up first, she wouldn’t use her glamours.

“I’m thinking about that bottle of Bren’s whiskey we saved and how I can’t have any.” Not that this had been particularly harrowing. It was a milestone to be celebrated though. It should have been the three of them. Or, a different three of them.

“Well,” Eodwulf huffs. “I suppose if I must do everything myself…”

“My hero.” She squeezes his arm in a hug, then moves to the door. “Well?”

He waves her on, “I’ll be right up. You’re the favorite now anyway.”

Astrid frowns, not happy with the idea of favorites now and especially dreading the idea of speaking to Ikithon alone. 

She resolves to walk slowly, up out of the dungeon like workspace bellow Ikithon's Vergessen tower, into the first floor’s receiving room. It should have been empty.

“Ah, Astrid!”

She hears her name before looking up to see who’s spoken it, but the accent is distinct enough to know even before. Lady DeRogna closes the gap between them in a few easy strides. It wasn’t necessarily uncommon for her to have been at Vergessen’s, though it always gave Astrid the feeling she was missing something when another Assembly member turned up without her aware beforehand.

“Lady DeRogna. What brings you all the way out here?” She wouldn’t get a real answer and she knew it, but small talk certainly wouldn’t kill her today.

“I’m afraid I have cause to speak with your Archmage Ikithon,” She sighs, like this is some tremendous undertaking, but there is still an undertone of humor. “It seemed I could not pull him from his projects here in a timely manner.”

Astrid nods. There seems to be some implication she knows just what might be keeping him, but the both of them also knew she would never have been at liberty to say.

“It’s been some time since I’ve seen Ikithon’s little Blumenthal trio.” Lady DeRogna continues. “Look at you, all grown up, defending the empire.” There’s an acknowledgement of Astrid’s still gloved hands and though something like a uniform would be ridiculous, her clothes were still that particular shade of Rexxentrum red.

Astrid imagines this is what it might feel like to have extended family. Her polite smile doesn’t waiver, but she throws a glance over her shoulder as if it might summon Wulf a little faster. “Eodwulf should be right behind me…”

Don’t ask about Bren. Don’t ask about Bren. Don’t ask about Bren… Drowns out most other thoughts in Astrid’s head. She had to have known. Or if she didn’t, it meant Ikithon was hiding him and somehow that stung just as much.

“It seems more than a few congratulations are in order.” Lady DeRogna carries on, her smile takes a knowing edge. 

Astrid feels herself flush. She wants to ask who told, how many others at the academy or the assembly knew. What must Master Ikithon really be saying about her… Maybe she would have preferred to speak of Bren after all.

“I’m sorry, dear, have I made you uncomfortable?”

“I- No, it’s alright. I haven’t quite gotten used to anyone knowing just yet.” Which is the truth. Astrid itches at the scar on her neck, thinking again about the glamour she isn’t using. Eodwulf had tried to convince her she wasn’t really showing, that she wouldn’t want to expend the energy while they were working anyway, but it was the question if that was why she had been tapped out that night with Bren that really caused her to stop. He hadn’t blamed her, all he’d done was ask, but it was enough. “I haven’t exactly announced it…”

“People do love their gossip. These sorts of things inspire quite a lot of it when the source is someone in your position.”

Astrid takes a steadying breath before responding. “I mean no disrespect, Lady DeRogna, but I am very tired and if you are looking to admonish me for being too young or unwed then I can assure you others have saved you the trouble.” 

“You are young.” Lady DeRogna matches Astrid’s curt tone, but her face softens with pity, or maybe genuine concern, as she continues. “Very young to be trying so hard to have it all as they say, but I think that’s admirable.”

“Thank… you?” It shouldn’t have sounded like a question. She shouldn’t have let it rattle her in that way, Astrid knew better. But gods, at least she could pretend someone was happy for her.

Lady DeRogna chuckles. Astrid feels more and more like an open book. “I take it the people in your life are mostly men and are not quite so understanding, no?”

“They do their best.”

Lady DeRogna knows better, the twinkle in her eye as she smiles back at Astrid says so. “If you ever find yourself in need of more matronly company, you’re welcome to call on me.”

“Thank you, Lady DeRogna.” She almost says more but then that probably is why she hears Ikithon barking her name. “Excuse me.”

Astrid shrinks under the look she feels being exchanged between the two Archmages. It felt like getting caught in their crossfires. Ikithon’s at the very least.

He places a hand on the small of her back as he steers her in the direction of his sanatorium offices. Astrid grinds her teeth.

“Am I not allowed well wishes now?”

“You’re smarter than that, Astrid. You think we would be the only ones excited by your little possibility?”

“Is that what you call her when you talk about me?”

He gives her a sidelong glance, but doesn’t respond. It’s plenty of confirmation for her. 

“I assume you’ve come with something to tell me.” He says only after he’s shut the door behind them. Astrid is more than happy to step further into the room.

“Yes, sir. We’ve… We think we’re finished.” She tries not to let her uncertainty shine through. 

Whether it had or hadn’t, Ikithon’s face is unreadable as he moves to take a seat at the desk. She takes the seat opposite, already beginning to bounce one of her legs out of nervousness.

“Eodwulf should be on his way as well.” He would be getting an earful for this, even if it made her feel like a nag. “I think it would be best to wait on him.”

Ikithon folds his hands over top of the desk. “Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: has had the Vess DeRogna bits written since October, gets really attached to the potential dynamic there  
> episode 114: :)  
> me: … oh :c
> 
> It’s not even my fault Astrid can’t catch a dang break at this point T-T


	10. between the lines of fear and blame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wulf's POV has entered the chat o:
> 
> Merry crisis

The return to form had made Astrid complacent.

It was wrong of him to take advantage of this, Eodwulf knew so, but if he had to be patient and understanding of everything she’d done or said in the last few months, he figured she could forgive him this one thing.

If he’d wanted, he could have blamed some of it on Astrid anyway. Bren and she had always been the smart ones, the quick witted ones… He’d fallen in line as the one taking the blows to shield their pretty little heads, but that wasn’t why he’d garnered Ikithon’s attention. The others knew this, but sometimes Wulf was certain they’d forgotten. It worked out best for everyone when they did. Still, she should’ve known.

So it had only seemed natural, to forget things during or after their interrogations, to suddenly remember some reason to wander off on the sanatorium’s grounds. Astrid didn’t question it, though she should have. The guilt over that ate at Wulf even now, what he presumed would be his final go of this sneaking around.

The asylum’s staff had learned to stop asking questions. He’d worked it out that way over weeks of ‘just grabbing something’ or ‘looking for Archmage Ikithon’. Certainly not on the hunt for where Bren might be kept. No eye or ear being kept out for things like schedules or where might the keys be kept.

He laughs to himself as he collects the latter, still surprised the only thing keeping Bren from them was one mundane little lock. He pockets the key and walks as casually as ever, deeper into the asylum and up to Bren’s room. The orderly he does pass gives him no more notice than a nod, which Eodwulf returns.

The hinges to Bren’s room are well oiled. No noise to alert anyone to Eodwulf’s presence. Not even a latent alarm spell to give him away. He knows it’s cocky, but Eodwulf already begins entertaining the idea of how easy it might be to steal Bren away. He and Astrid could fix him better than any of these idiots, he was sure.

Unlike what they had been told, Bren is not sleeping. He sits on the only piece of furniture in the room, the bed, staring onwards at one of the blank walls.

“Hey!” Eodwulf hisses from the doorway. “Hey Bren! Pst!” 

When no answer comes, not even a look, Eodwulf glances back over his shoulder then steps inside and shuts the door. Carefully he creeps into Bren’s line of sight. Still nothing.

He doesn’t know what he expected. Maybe a weakened miserable Bren, physically ill, but still present. He would have been relieved to have a ball of fire lobbed at him. At least he knew that Bren. The young man sitting despondent, staring past him, felt foreign to Eodwulf.

“Hey Bren.” He keeps his voice low, he blames that for the way it waivers just a little. “Resting well?”

Nothing. Not a look. Not a movement. Wulf wonders if Bren had even sat himself up on his own. The idea of it makes him feel sick. If this was it, they could have taken care of him just as well. Better, even.

“Fuck… Your arms.” They were wrapped almost the same as Astrid’s had been. He can only imagine how that had gone, considering he’d been the one to think of knocking Astrid out. Wulf shudders and forces himself to focus somewhere else.

Two months, Eodwulf has to remind himself. It had been nearly two months since the very last time he’d seen Bren. He looked like it had been more. Gaunt. Eodwulf grinds his teeth as the word hollow comes to mind as well. Bren had always been smaller, dare he say delicate, but this bordered on frightening. They’d cut his hair too.

“She’s going to kill whoever messed with your hair.” Wulf snorts with some amusement, but there’s still no response. With another sigh, Wulf sits down on the floor in front of Bren. “Astrid says hello, I guess. I didn’t tell her about this. Believe me, she’s been trying, she’s just… She’s… She’s got a lot going on.” For a moment he wonders what the repercussions of telling Bren would be. In this state, Astrid would never know… but he would.

“Bren? We could really use you back now. You know I wouldn’t admit this if I didn’t mean it, we’re sort of falling apart without you.” He was, at the very least. “I mean, we did alright, I guess. First time and all. Astrid’s just… She’s going to stretch herself too thin.” He was going to lose her too. One of them he could handle, because it would be temporary. Astrid would be right, in the end. She’d make it happen by sheer force of will. But without her, Eodwulf could never pull the weight of the three of them. They’d always played off each other.

“You should have told us. We could have figured it out. Together.” Eodwulf still isn’t sure there was anything to tell, but he prefers that to the alternative. That any of them could simply break at any point. That there really was nothing they could have done. Nothing they could do now. Waiting would kill him faster than it would kill Astrid, Wulf was convinced of it. He scoots closer so that he’s sitting directly at Bren’s feet, looking up at him.

“Come on Bren, give me something to work with.” He whispers and waits. Bren continues to stare past him, to the degree that Eodwulf feels emboldened to take one of Bren’s hands in his. It kills him not to cast any healing, but that would be an obvious tell that Bren had visitors. “I know you’re in there, asshole. And you’re just eating it up, aren’t you? You’ve got me on my knees, being all vulnerable and shit. You want me to beg too?”

More nothing.

When Eodwulf can no longer stand it he gives Bren’s hand a final squeeze and withdraws. He leans back on his hands, still looking Bren over, turning the situation around in his head. He should have brought Astrid. She was probably right, as always, about them doing things divided. Then again, he still felt like she’d started that.

“It’s not going to get any less complicated once she gets involved, you know that don’t you? Astrid’s…” Eodwulf shakes his head. He knows exactly where he’d begin with all this, but that still wasn’t his to say. “I wish you could see her like this, you’d be having fun with it all. The head games.”

He hoped he was right. That somewhere in there Bren was taking this all in, playing some game of his own. But more so he wished Bren would knock it off and come back to them. Maybe, selfishly, him specifically. 

With another sigh, Eodwulf gets back to his feet. He takes Bren’s face between his hands and leans down to kiss his forehead. He stays there a moment, forehead lightly pressed to Bren’s, searching for anything else he might be able to say. I’m sorry. I miss you. I love you. None of them quite take form.

Eodwulf finally steps back and runs a sleeved arm over his face. “Astrid’ll be along soon, I’m sure.” He calls as he moves to the door.

It’s just as he shuts the door behind him and pockets the key that Eodwulf hears the sound of someone else in the hallway. A half-elven man in the Vergesson uniform stops short a few feet down the hall, eyebrow quirked at Eodwulf’s presence.

“Just a little business for Archmage Ikithon.” He offers before he can even be asked. He doesn’t recognize this one specifically, but he hadn’t spent much time committing specific members of the staff to memory. 

“I’m sure he’ll be happy to explain it to me later.” It’s a thinly veiled threat, but a good one. Exactly the thing he’d hoped to avoid.

Eodwulf nods once, slowly. The residuum in his arms sparks with a mix of dread and anticipation, he should have been more bothered by the tell, but the poor bastard wouldn’t know what that meant for him regardless. “I’m sure he will.”


	11. it's always have and never hold

“I see your shadow is lagging behind again.”

Astrid sighs. She’s beginning to run out of answers for Eodwulf’s behavior. If he thought he was being discrete… Maybe it really was no wonder anyone had been so familiar with their personal lives.

“He likes to be thorough.” He’s not even there, he’d excused himself from the interrogation nearly an hour ago. She’d known since about the third instance of forgetting things, or remembering something, or he just wanted to check one more thing… Eodwulf wasn’t stupid. It might have benefited him to have others think so, she might have fallen for it plenty of times herself, but especially now, Astrid knew better.

Ikithon hums, doubtful. By the way he hasn’t pressed the matter or simply begun scrying on Eodwulf, Astrid has to believe he knows something she doesn’t. Another test. If she knew, would she rat her own partner out? If it were some errand she hadn’t been sent on, would she be jealous? Enough to complain? Enough to ruin how well they’d been doing?

They were supposed to be doing better. They were. The silly little interrogations were getting less trivial. She still wasn’t entirely sure what they’d been asked to do last week; go here, deliver this, say that, she doesn’t question it. At least she’d been allowed to go somewhere beside their home, the estate, and Vergesson. For all the little differences, this was exactly what they’d wanted. It would be so easy to ruin now.

So of course Ikithon knew and of course he would find some way to test it.

“When he turns up again, I would appreciate your reminding him where distraction has landed us in the past.” He still glances down the hall like he expects Eodwulf to come along any moment now, but there’s a threat even in his monotone. She shouldn’t have allowed for it to happen at all. She should have thrown Eodwulf to the dogs. She was missing something, somehow.

“Yes, sir.” Astrid shifts from one foot to the other, her eyes dart from the hall, to Ikithon, to her hands. “May I wait for him at home?”

“Tired, Astrid?”

She shakes her head almost before he’s even said her name. Sore, maybe. She thinks the symptoms can’t all be in her head now; Things swell and ache and she refuses to alleviate any of it with magic. Just as he’d prefer.

“Remind me, how much longer?”

“Four months or so.” She braces for some suggestion, something she could be doing to make this more worth it. He hadn’t stopped pushing the idea of the residuum. He liked to save that for when Eodwulf wasn’t around to hear it too.

“You can’t be any more specific? We’ll have to plan around not having you…”

“It shouldn’t lay me up for long.” Astrid shrugs. Evi had offered as much, but she’d declined. Putting a date on it felt like accepting yet another change to her fragile status quo. If she could just hold on to this one for a little bit longer, maybe…

“You’ll want to make sure they’re prepared for you in Vergessens.”

“I’m not having my baby in an insane asylum.” She mumbles, not feeling the need to tiptoe around agreeability because they’d already had this conversation once. She couldn’t shake the idea of being stuck there afterwards, like Bren.

Ikithon’s laugh is humorless. “It’s a medical facility. One that we are fortunate enough to have at our disposal with little question.”

“In Blumenthal-“

“You’re no longer in Blumenthal, thank goodness. And I know you’re smarter than to put that much faith in that backwoods midwife you found. Evi, was it?”

There was the threat. She’d been waiting for it. Astrid shifts her weight again. Ikithon isn’t looking for an answer.

“You’ve really got to stop this, Astrid. It’s tiresome, especially after all I’ve already done for you. The only one still here for you, it seems…” There’s another pointed look down the hall.

“And Eodwulf.”

“Perhaps it’s for the best you get used to working alone,” He sighs. “He won’t have you to cover for him much longer.” Another threat. Or another opportunity to say something, though she doesn’t know what.

“I won’t be down long.” She knows there’s something in the way he keeps harping on it. If it’s because he truly does want her out of the way for some reason or to goad her into recovering faster, she isn’t sure. She won’t know until it’s too late, as always. “Besides, I want him with me. He should be there for his daughter.”

It takes saying it for Astrid to realize Eodwulf needed the cover up just as much as the baby might. Bren was safe, for now, he still had the potential to recover. The baby still had potential. But Eodwulf… Eodwulf must have known exactly how stupid he was being right now. Astrid hoped it was worth it.

Ikithon hums again, still doubtful. She hates the way it unsettles her. The idea that it’s exactly what he wants too. He still thinks there’s something else she should have been doing. Or saying.

She’s dismissed soon after. Every other time Eodwulf had managed to just skate in at the end, if he was so determined to flirt with the disaster of keeping Ikithon waiting. At this rate she expects to catch him jogging after her on the way home, but he never shows. He’s not waiting for her back at the house either.

Astrid settles herself on the couch, with a perfect view of the front window and door. It almost feels petty, to simply wait for him there, rehearsing in her head what she might say, imagining what excuses he might have for it all.

“My parents never yelled at each other…” Astrid muses out loud. If she thinks too hard, she has to admit they expressed their disapproval much the same as Ikithon. She’d have to wonder if that’s why things kept working out the way they did. Why she could play the game where Eodwulf couldn’t seem to keep track of the rules. “I hope it’s not upsetting, kätzchen, but they’re both so stupid sometimes.”

She huffs when she realizes maybe calling her child’s fathers stupid wasn’t very productive either.

“I’m only upset because I love them.” She still whispers it, even if they’re the only two home. So much of this could have been avoided if they’d all been the stone cold killers Ikithon had hoped for. “You’ll just have to learn to be better than us, I’m sorry.”

Eventually, she’s laid out on the couch, feet propped up on the other arm and the book she’s tried to distract herself with laid over her chest. She doesn’t let herself fall asleep entirely, every little noise getting her to watch the door through half closed eyes until it finally does open.

She watches Eodwulf gently shut the door behind him, looking as though he intends to simply creep up the stairs unnoticed until she stirs and he jumps.

“Sorry.” He offers, still remaining by the front door. “I really didn’t mean to leave you like that.”

“Yes you did.” To her credit, she doesn’t snap. She simply states the fact that they both knew. “Ikithon knows too, by the way.”

“That’s… not exactly surprising.” He’s still trying to play it off but his laugh is strained.

Astrid frowns. The last thing she wants is to fight, but gods how she wants to scream at him, demand to know what exactly is so worth endangering himself right now. As if they haven’t both lost enough.

Instead she takes notice of a small stain on his shirt collar.

“There wasn’t any blood on your shirt the last time I saw you.”

Eodwulf grunts, shrugging as he rubs at the spot she indicated. “We work with a lot of blood now, Sassa. It’s bound to get lots of places when you aren’t looking.”

“Where were you?”

“I just needed to check on something.” Now he starts for the stairs, but her sharp bark of ‘No’ stops him.

“Where were you? I don’t care if he’s giving you extra work, or- or you’re seeing someone… But if you don’t tell me then you might as well be keeping secrets and-“

She watches as one of those words causes Eodwulf to react. He sits heavily in his chair, but remains just as tense as before. “I went to see Bren.”

Astrid sits up, suddenly mirroring his posture. She doesn’t have to ask, he continues to explain.

“There’s a lull, in the afternoons. I got them used to seeing me there, I stole the key - it’s just a stupid little lock and key, that’s it - and… and I saw him.”

“You broke in?” Her mind reels with what little details he gave. They could have done it together. Better. Ikithon never had to know anything. Never had to get his hooks in any of this.

“Well, if they would have just let me-“

“You saw him?”

“Yes.”

“Without me.” She didn’t think it would have stung so much. It did though. It ached almost as much as the night they’d left him. Maybe worse. This time she was the one left behind.

“You wouldn’t’ve wanted to see him like that.”

Astrid bristles. “How dare you decide what I do or don’t want.”

“For all I knew he was still throwing fireballs at people. And if he saw you and all he remembered was the last time we saw him…”

She thinks her scar itches then. But if it does, it’s in her head, she knows so, so she doesn’t scratch.

“Fine.”

Eodwulf winces, catching on just a little too late. “Astrid…”

“I said, fine.” It’s too forceful to truly be cold, but it still has the desired effect. Eodwulf doesn’t apologize. She carries on. “How was he?”

“I only got a quick look. Not sleeping, just… Out of it.”

“Did you speak to him?”

“Not really. Called his name, no response.”

Astrid’s heart sinks. Which is funny to her, because with matters of Bren she was sure they’d already hit rock bottom. She has to wonder if it would be different with her. Better. A stupid, selfish thought but she has it all the same.

“And the blood?”

“Not from Bren. Some stupid orderly caught me.”

“And you took care of it.” They could have avoided that as well.

Eodwulf nods, once. She knows what he’s thinking there. Don’t tell her any more than she needs to know, don’t implicate her in this.

Astrid sighs, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands. “Fuck, Wulf…”

“No one’s going to know. He just disappeared, that’s what we do.” Except Eodwulf has that look about him. When things didn’t go quite to plan but there was no way to go back on it now. He’d scared even himself. A part of Astrid was glad for that.

“Yeah. We do that. Together.” She looks up at him, still not sure what to make of any of this, least of all Eodwulf’s thoughts. They’d been doing so well, why did he have to go and ruin it all now?

“What do you want from me, Astrid? I’m sorry. I’m sorry I miss him, I’m sorry I can’t ask you to help with this sort of thing anymore.”

Astrid shuts her eyes and takes a deep breath. She knows exactly what he means by that. “You could have. Gods, Wulf, you don’t even know…”

“What? That Ikithon’s upset?” Eodwulf snorts. Back to being defensive again. “Let him be. He ripped out Bren’s residuum first, you know? I was the one who put you under, you think anyone thought to do that for him?”

“What could we have done about it anyway?” Her voice shakes and she feels on the verge of tears again. There hardly feels like there’s any time to process the information about Bren. She hates that she has to ask it at all. She knows the answer, she wishes he did too. “What’s you acting up and leaving me going to fix anything for anyone?”

“What about Bren? You don’t think we left him?”

“We’re not leaving him. We can’t do anything right now, but maybe if you would have just-“

“Maybe you can’t do anything.”

Astrid rubs at her face and growls. She knows that was bait. She almost takes it. “You’re not getting it! We can’t do anything for him if we aren’t here! I can’t protect you-“

“Protect me from what, Astird? So Ikithon gets upset again. What’s he going to do about it? This is exactly why I didn’t bring you. You’re too paranoid-”

“Send me to Vergesson’s and get you all alone, that’s what he’s going to do about it!” She sits back up as she shouts at him. Mentally, she still kicks herself for it. She is paranoid. Maybe even doubly so now.

Now Eodwulf stops talking. They sit in silence for a long moment, until Astrid fels she’s gathered her thoughts again.

“We’re pushing too hard. Maybe he is upset about Bren, but at least Bren is contained. He is still upset about me, but he knows I’ll be good.” She smiles bitterly. She expects Eodwulf to tell her to stop. Stop playing games. He can’t make you do anything.

Instead, Eodwulf just sighs.

“You know I want Bren back more than anything, I know you do, but we just… we have to be smarter about it. And I know it’s my fault and- and the baby’s.” Astrid’s lip begins to quiver, so she bites it. When it calms again and Eodwulf still hasn’t spoken, she continues. “I am glad you saw him.”

“I should have waited.”

Astrid shakes her head. “It’s good information. We needed that.” She wants to crack a joke about the stupid lock. How many of those had they picked in the academy? And as if that would stop a trio of volstruckers anyway. But Eodwulf has that glassy look still that says he’s moved on to fighting with himself.

“Hurts.” He says, then finds more words to put to it. “I try and help one of you and just hurt the other.”

“I was worried about you, asshole, not me.” Astrid moves from the couch to stand in front of him. She bends down to kiss his forehead and places a hand on his cheek. He gives her hand a squeeze and tries to tug her down into his lap but Astrid declines.

“I think I need some air.” She explains and moves to collect her coat from the hook by the door. Eodwulf doesn’t argue.


	12. but fair ain't what you really need

Astrid doesn’t so much have a plan as an impulse to do… something. There has to be something she’s missing, as always. Something she can do to fix this.

She pulls her coat a little tighter around herself as she continues down the shimmer ward’s streets. It’s not even particularly cold. She should have stayed. She should have let Eodwulf hold her and together pretend everything would be alright in the end. Or, if Ikithon’s implications were to be believed, at least pretend to cherish their little taste of everything working out for once in their miserable little lives, even if it only had been a few weeks. Because she can’t shake the feeling that this is it somehow. Something else was about to change for the worse. Some other shoe was about to drop. They can’t break the rules if Ikithon changes them, it’s their fault for forcing his hand.

In her bid for comfort Astrid finds herself back on the Soltryce Academy grounds. The evening lull would just be ending; With some splintering off to study and some anything but. She considers slipping inside, just to sit in some secret alcove in the library and pretend that Bren or Eodwulf weren’t far behind. That they were all still the boundless fonts of potential they’d been told they were. They hadn’t ruined this. Not yet.

“You haven’t ruined anything, kätzchen.” She whispers as another thought strikes her. “I just should have done better for them. And you.”

She dithers on the library steps, not quite able to make up her mind. Momentarily lost in her own thoughts.

It had used to be a game - mostly for herself and Bren, because Eodwulf refused to play - How much could they get away with while still technically remaining inside the carefully curated lines.

Ikithon did it too, with assembly matters, they all saw it. The rest of them too, she was sure, though she’d never been as privy to anyone else’s private schemes. She wished she’d learned to play more like that.

Whether they’re real or not, the perceived looks from those around her don’t allow for her to keep her courage for much longer. And there are better places for the thoughts she’s begun to think.

“At least I can spare you some things. For now.” She mumbles as she stalks back across the Soltryce lawns. Again, she should go home, but when she reaches the streets again she still presses on with her loop of Rexxentrum’s most inner ward.

There is something horrible and conniving in the way she knows what she had just told Eodwulf and that what she’s about to do goes against all of it. But perhaps if she had only been more horrible and conniving in the ways Ikithon had wanted for them they wouldn’t have been in this position.

She should have let Eodwulf tie his own noose. She shouldn’t have felt anything when he’d said he saw Bren without her. Or hurt at the thought of Bren, sick and injured and alone. Most importantly of all, she never should have allowed herself to be so sentimental about the concept of family or home.

She is weak. She is soft. Which is why she decides the irony of stealing away to the Candles is justified now. It would be a kinder sort of hurt, in the end.

The front door of Lady DeRogna’s tower opens seemingly on it’s own.

“Is she here?” Astrid asks, not sure why she feels the need to whisper, but she does. The door swings open a little further as she assumes the unseen servant backs away from the door. She hesitantly steps inside, looking around the tower’s foyer.

“Lady DeRogna?” She starts with a whisper again but the door shutting behind her spurs her to speak up louder. “It’s uh, me. Astrid. Beck. I should have checked if you were even here…” Maybe that was for the best though. Astrid begins a tentative sweep of the foyer. What she’s looking for wouldn’t necessarily be there, but…

There’s the sound of a door being open and shut up above. Footsteps begin to descend down the stairs that wrap around the furthest wall. Astrid returns to the center of the room and fidgets with her coat.

The Lady herself comes into view a moment later, stopping part way down the stairs. “Astrid? Darling, what are you doing here?”

“I’m fighting with Eodwulf,” It’s not entirely a lie. Even if it is, Ikithon might just be proud of her for it. Lying to another Assembly member. 

Despite the way she lifts her chin and has long since stopped crying, she still sounds miserable. Perfect. “And I don’t need Master Ikithon to know and I didn’t know where else to go.”

“I see.” Lady DeRogna finishes descending the stairs, then beckons Astrid nearer. “Come. I’ll make tea.”

Astrid watches as the cups and saucers appear to simply float their way into place, actually carried by Lady DeRogna’s unseen servant. She jumps a little as she catches Lady DeRogna watching her.

“I know I didn’t give you any notice or anything and I really don’t mean to interrupt either…” Their contact with other Assembly members had always been limited, Astrid had her guesses why, and even if she had made up her mind about this she still couldn’t shake the guilt that had been long since engrained in her. Lady DeRogna couldn’t actually be trusted. Whatever comfort Astrid did derive from this wouldn’t be genuine. Just means to an end, like Astrid would be for her. For anyone else.

“Hush. I told you to call on me and it seems you do have a need,” Lady DeRogna sits alongside her, resting her arm on the couch’s back and settling in as if she expects some lengthy explanation. “What exactly has your silly beau done to warrant all of this?”

She still can’t explain what happened to Bren. Or what that has to do with any of this. Maybe Lady DeRogna knows a version of it already. And even if she did, Astrid knows the answer to all her own problems already. Just do as you’re told. Leave Bren alone. Let Eodwulf dig his own grave. She’d have to work with something else.

“He’s just… He’s mad at me. About this.” She gestures to herself, meaning the baby. That wasn’t even a lie. She knew what he’d wanted to say - at least she thought she did. He’d almost said it. He can’t rely on her anymore. 

Lady DeRogna clucks sympathetically. “Having second thoughts is he?”

“He didn’t know. Nobody knew. I should have kept it that way…”

The Lady laughs. A good sign, Astrid hopes. “I would have loved to see your archmage’s face in that case.”

“He talks about me then?” Astrid can’t help the genuine dread that shines through in the question.

“Oh.” It didn’t seem Lady DeRogna planned for the idea to be upsetting. “Not terribly much. I’m sure you know how we are.”

Astrid shrugs, doing a half hearted job of playing along. “People talk.” They always had, they always would, but she had thought maybe once outside the Academy grounds she wouldn’t’ve had to hear so much. Ikithon solved that for her. Presenting the latest gossip or down right conspiracy theory to her over dinners and meetings, like she should simply laugh it off as well. Of course he contributed to it as well.

“I meant what I said before. You’re doing and have done more than some even my age hoped to do.” The vulnerability makes Astrid fidget in her seat and wish the unseen servant hadn’t taken her coat. It’s still not supposed to mean anything, but she wishes it could. She wishes she could let it.

“I don’t know what I’m doing at all.” She admits quietly.

“No one does, darling, not really. But you’re here now, so I would think it best to keep a little confidence in your decisions. It tends to fool people a little easier.” Lady DeRogna sighs and her smile takes a knowing glint. “What are you really here for, Astrid?” 

The question feels like ice water. She doesn’t stop to wonder how Lady DeRogna knows, all Astrid cares about is the fact that she does know. Was she really this transparent after all?

“I know you aren’t here because you expect I have any sort of advice for you. I can’t imagine your master would be keen on this either, though I will admit that was a small personal bonus to my offer before.” Lady DeRogna clarifies further. “I do hope it’s because you want something, not because he thinks he’s found some in. Which he hasn’t.”

Astrid’s heart begins to hammer in her chest again, but she can work with this. “I- I need to see Bren. We’re not allowed, but I thought maybe if I forged something from you…”

“Why not just ask?”

“I’m not sure that would be a forgivable offense.”

“But otherwise going against your master’s wishes is?”

Astrid huffs. Frustrated anew at the situation. “Eodwulf’s already done it. He snuck in and he didn’t want to involve me because… you know, but he’s going to get in more trouble than I think he realizes and Ikithon can’t- If we’ve both done it then-“ The snags in her plan begin to catch in her mind. Her chest constricts a little tighter with every one. She couldn’t protect him. She couldn’t protect Bren. She couldn’t protect anyone.

“What are you afraid of?”

“We’ve… failed.” She feels as though she could have choked on the word. “We all broke just like Bren and he’s- he’s going to leave us. He’s going to leave me in Vergesson’s and- and Wulf-”

Lady DeRogna begins to shush her as if consoling a child. From somewhere she’s pulled a handkerchief and wipes Astrid’s tears away. “Your devotion is adorable, but getting this worked up is unnecessary.” Lady DeRogna gives Astrid’s chin an affectionate little shake then let’s her go. When something doesn’t click, she sighs and continues her spiel. “Nothing so terrible will happen to your Eodwulf, I’m sure.”

“He’s going to separate us. We’re too distracted-“

“You are distracted.” She’s still finding some sort of amusement in this, but it doesn’t feel the same as when Ikithon did it. Even if she’s being played, Astrid doesn’t feel like there’s something she could have caught on to either way. She doesn’t mind the idea of being used here. “But Ikithon should have known better to expect more from a couple of hormone addled teenagers.”

“That’s not what happened.” Astrid snips. Maybe it was, a little bit, but not the way Lady DeRogna was thinking. There were other things at play and Astrid… was supposed to be better than that anyway.

“Oh darling, you have no idea how much pleasure some of us are deriving from Ikithon’s little trio finally acting a little human for once. Do you understand how infuriating you are to some of us? And he expects this one to be even quicker, I know he does. Bastard.”

Astrid gives a pained expression, not sure whether to be amused or hurt.

Lady DeRogna laughs and reaches for Astrid’s hand. “I know it isn’t fair to you, but it’s just the price you have to pay to play our little games. And you do, you play very well.”

“Not for much longer.”

“Stop it. You’re having a child, not becoming an invalid. I don’t know the particulars of what happened with your Bren and I don’t need to, but this is nowhere near on that level. Beside that, your master has invested far too much into you to simply drop you the moment you become a tiny bit inconvenient. He’d be an absolute fool and he knows it.”

“But Eodwulf-“

“Should know better than to go upsetting you like this now. Men.” She scoffs. “I just knew they were going to do this to you. Astrid, darling, you have got to stop humoring them like this. Especially now. You have no obligation to look after any of them.”

But I love them, she wants to say, they’re all I have.

She thinks maybe she doesn’t have to after all. Lady DeRogna gives her a sorrowful look and a sympathetic squeeze to her hand before leaving the couch to go sit at the nearby desk.

Astrid watches a moment as Lady DeRogna pulls out paper and dips a quill in ink. “What are you doing?”

“Making sure you’ve gotten what you came for.” She mumbles, primarily focused on whatever she’s writing. “I’m not quite so involved with the sanatorium, but if your archmage takes issue with my borrowing you he can take it up with me. And I will tell him as much.”

Astrid frowns, suddenly wary. This shouldn’t have been easy like that. She should still be in trouble, somehow. “What do you want for it?”

“Hm?”

“You’re- You’re not just going to do that for nothing in return.”

“Not everything has to be so sinister, dear.” Lady DeRogna pauses to blow lightly on the seal she’s pressed over the closed letter, then fixes Astrid with something of a stern look. “I’m a single, childless, assemblywoman. You’re an orphaned prodigy, about to have a baby all on her own. I think we pair nicely.”

The word ‘orphaned’ stings, though Astrid hasn’t thought about it properly until just now.

Lady DeRogna returns to Astrid’s side and offers over the letter. “You are allowed to say no to me, I promise.”

“I don’t want to say no.” She still hesitates before taking the letter. “I- Thank you, Lady DeRogna.”

“It’s Vess, just Vess, if you plan to come again. I’d like you to, if you can.”

Astrid fidgets again from the genuine emotion of it all. “I’d like that too.”

Lady DeRogna- Vess, begins to grin again. “Should I make you stay the night and steal away in the morning?”

“No, thank you. Wulf will be worried by now.” She thinks she may just need the walk hom to process this turn of events as well.


	13. they say the devil that you know is better than the devil that you don't

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw; serious emotional manipulation
> 
> thanks for checking in, ikithon is /still a piece of garbage/.

The letter remains in Astrid’s coat pocket. At least for the night. There had been nothing in her conversation with Lady Vess that suggested it was particularly time sensitive. And she wouldn’t wait long. 

She hangs her coat back by the door and creeps up the stairs, headed first to her room but waylaid by the fact that Eodwulf’s light was still on and his door still open.

She thinks about telling him off for it. Even if it isn’t that late. Even if he isn’t the one who could use the rest. Instead, Astrid sheds her outer layers of clothing and crawls into bed beside him. Her eyes shut almost the moment her head hits the pillow but she doesn’t miss the quizzical look he gives her.

“We’re not fighting anymore, keep up.” She mumbles and blindly searches for his hand behind her. Eodwulf complies with a tired sigh and curls up around her. For a moment things are almost as they should be… beside the absence of Bren.

Astrid muses idly as she shifts to get more comfortable that even if Bren had been there, their bed had gotten too small for the four of them.

She tries not to think of Bren, alone. Or what Eodwulf had said about the residuum. Her mind drifts to the very first time she’d plead with their master on the others’ behalf. Bren had only gotten confused, he hadn’t meant to make a mistake.

“Do you think I enjoy punishing the three of you?” Ikithon had asked. She remembers him as sorrowful in that moment, but now she wonders if that were really the case.

“No, sir.” She’d said, because it was the right answer. She was twelve. She hadn’t yet wrapped her mind around the idea that there could be any love in abuse. Mostly because she refused to think of it as abuse.

“Then why do you think I do?”

“Because you know we’re better than this.” It had been drilled into them since long before being singled out by Master Ikithon. It wasn’t just anyone who gained entry to the academy. The fact that it had been the three of them, so close together, from Blumenthal of all places, it had to mean something. They had to make it mean something. Otherwise, what a waste.

“Would I not then be holding you back by keeping any of you from correction?”

Astrid laces her fingers with Eodwulf’s and pulls his hand closer to her chest. They were distracted. Bren was distracting. And maybe Lady Vess was right, who could honestly blame them? But…

“Wulf?” Astrid’s voice feels small again.

“Hm?” He sounds like he’s just begun to fall asleep, but Astrid doesn’t think she’ll be able to unless she asks.

“Are you sure he doesn’t know?”

“The only person who saw me is dead.” The scruff on his cheek scratches against her bare shoulder as he talks. The killing part should bother her more, she’s sure, but it doesn’t. “It’s not like Bren’s talking…”

“He’s really bad then, isn’t he?” She has to imagine Eodwulf would sugar coat it. The same as she would for him. Stupid, both of them.

“Maybe we could both get back in there. I mean I know we could, just-“

“No.” She says it automatically. Not because she doesn’t want to, but gods if she has to field any more trouble for Wulf… And a part of her still thinks it would only be fair to go without him.

“I didn’t mean you should just give up. Maybe you’re still right, maybe if he sees you and knows about the baby…”

“What if it’s not enough? It hasn’t been enough for you.” She shouldn’t have said it, but she can’t stop thinking about it either. Or now about Vess believing a version of it. If Bren had been better… if Eodwulf had been better… Then she wouldn’t’ve had to be better for all of them. She wouldn’t have to be playing games to earn their safety. Debating if that was even her place.

“You said we weren’t fighting…”

“We’re not.” She didn’t want to be any more than he did. “I’m just… tired.”

Eodwulf leans over her to dim the light on that side of the bed, then kisses her cheek. “Then sleep. I’m sorry I upset you.”

Astrid gives a weak laugh. If he’d really meant that… But they really would start fighting if she finished that thought.

She waits for the other shoe to drop in the weeks that follow. It will, she knows it will. Ikithon hardly speaks to either of them except through passed along notes and errand boys. There’s still work, but it’s less.

He has to know what that does to her. Especially now. It begins to feel impossible to sort which are symptoms of her pregnancy and which were guilt and anxiety.

“Maybe he’s trying to be… accommodating.” Eodwulf offers when he’s caught her in the midst of fretting again. He doesn’t sound any more convinced of it than she is, but at least he’d tried. Eodwulf had never minded when they were iced out like this. Sometimes Astrid was sure he preferred it. 

Bren had understood though. Ikithon had learned quickly that the same punishment of isolation worked nearly as well on Bren as it did her. Sometimes it killed two birds with one stone. 

It feels nearly impossible not to think of how Bren must have felt, if he were cognizant of it. Being left in Vergesson’s for months now. But the letter remains tucked in her coat pocket, waiting for just the right opportunity.

  


The summoning to dinner feels like deja vu. Dread starts to fill Astrid the moment they leave the house. She clings to Eodwulf’s arm as they walk, her resolve to remain their beacon of reason and calculated civility having long since worn thin.

“What if you are in trouble though?” She can’t help but ask one more time. They’d been over it again and again. Usually it only went so far as being told to simply not worry. That Ikithon couldn’t know, because if he did, Eodwulf would have long since been punished.

“He’s not going to be out all three of us at once.” Eodwulf reminds. He’s probably right. If he’s saying it and Lady Vess had already said it… “You already look like a wreck.”

Astrid glares up at him.

Eodwulf rolls his eyes, “You know what I mean. And he has to know too. So if he actually cares about you or the baby…”

Astrid thinks she has a retort to that, but she keeps it to herself. They can’t start fighting again. Not now.

The immediate tension between Ikithon and Eodwulf is suffocating. More so than normal. Where Astrid might have enjoyed the verbal sparring over something trivial, this just sunk a pit of dread deeper and deeper into her core. Eodwulf couldn’t play these games. He shouldn’t. That was her job. And she was failing.

She waits on pins and needles. Some casual comment that Eodwulf would no longer be working with her. An invitation down to Ikithon’s basement labs that would not be extended to her as well.

It comes in two parts.

First the mention of the Ashguard Garrison. There is no reason for it. The border between the empire and Xorhas had been tense for as long as Astrid could remember. This was not news. They had no need for a volstrucker, least of all Eodwulf alone.

Astrid knows she’s only spinning herself up. That unless it’s explicitly stated that this might happen, she shouldn’t worry about it. The average person did not speak in riddles to be deciphered, but their master was no ordinary person.

Eodwulf lightly kicks at her feet from beneath the table. A small thing to help ground her.

“I would think one of your more experienced operatives would be better suited for that.” He adds, matching Ikithon’s disinterested tone almost perfectly. Almost.

Astrid hates that she knows him well enough to hear the slight waiver. It meant he feared just the same as her. That she wasn’t simply paranoid. She would have killed for it to be as simple as her own hysteria.

“It would certainly be an exercise in one’s abilities to follow orders, wouldn’t it?” Ikithon’s sigh is almost wistful.

The second is news from Vergesson’s, of course. She isn’t surprised he saves it for later in the evening, that’s exactly what makes it feel like a threat. While Ikithon drolls on about the missing, presumably dead, orderly, Astrid thinks she might just be sick.

She pushes back from the table abruptly, mumbling an apology as she darts from the dining room to the washroom. Nothing comes, but she sits on the cool stone floor and reminds herself to breathe while the nausea subsides.

It’s Ikithon that greets her on the other side of the door, not Eodwulf.

“I’m sorry.”

“Is something the matter, Astrid? Beside the obvious.”

“I think… I think it was just the thought of someone getting so close to Bren without our knowing so. He’s helpless.”

“It is concerning, isn’t it? But I wouldn’t call Bren helpless. I might feel sorry for anyone stupid enough to try contacting him while he’s so unstable.”

She nods. She had the scars to prove that one… But he hadn’t hurt Eodwulf. And if he only had a way to know what was going on without him.

“He’s still not doing well then, sir?”

“I’m not sure I should tell you more, if this is the reaction you have to bad news. I did try and warn you of this sort of thing.”

“I am very pregnant right now. It could just be that.” It’s a terrible excuse, but if ever she wished it worked… The alternative of being weak and unworthy of information stung too much.

Ikithon’s huff is amused, but his words less so. “I certainly hope you’re a better mother than… whatever you profess your relationship with Eodwulf to be.”

“I don’t know what that has to do with anything.”

Ikithon’s small smile is once again humorless. “These tantrums are growing tiresome, Astrid. Don’t you agree?”

“I’m sorry, sir, I still don’t-“

He sighs. “What haven't you let him bully you into, Astrid?”

“Nothing! Eodwulf doesn’t bully me.” A sharp pain in her side doesn’t let her go on any further. Maybe for the better. She hisses and places a hand over where she’d felt it. It hurt too much for a kick, she thinks, but it’s too soon for anything else.

The look Ikithon gives her is almost piteous, but tinged heavily with an I told you so. He still thought the baby was another of Eodwulf’s small rebellions.

Astrid averts her eyes to the floor, but Ikithon reaches out to tilt her chin until their gazes were level. “You know better than this. I raised you better than this. I have made allowances for you that I would have never made for any other of my students. You wanted this, did you not? Then do what needs to be done to keep this family of your’s in line or I will be forced to do the same. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.” She trembles and tears begin to cloud her vision, but it can’t be helped.

Ikithon grins before letting her go. “Good girl.” He offers her his arm to walk back with and she can’t refuse. For as present as she’s able to stay after that, Astrid is sure she would have walked into a wall without it. Or simply remained stuck there, still processing what was to be done.

“I’m not sure poor Astrid is feeling quite up to the walk all the way back to your place. She’ll stay the night here.” Ikithon announces upon their return.

“Thank you, sir.” She mumbles, too tired to try and begin unraveling which part of the game is this. Whether she was meant to refuse for some reason, or Eodwulf should or shouldn’t argue to prove what she didn’t know. 

“Then I’ll stay too.” He offers. His tone is cold, but Ikithon’s remains colder.

“If you think you can stomach it.”


	14. what a shame, nobody taught you how to read and riot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it’s just a given now that the longer it takes me to get a chapter up, the more likely it involves ickythong and 45 layers of conflicted feelings due to brainwashing and manipulation

“Are you kidding me?” Astrid had laughed once when Bren brought up concern about how the three of them would work romantically. “If it involves you, me, and pretending to sneak something past Ikithon, Wulf will try and convince us it was his idea all along.”

And he had, tried to anyway. The competitive streak ran through all three of them, but it ran through Eodwulf the deepest. It had bothered Astrid before. The way he could make a game out of anything. Be so cavalier as to set his own benchmarks for success. All the better in his mind it seemed when the rules of the game included getting away with something he otherwise shouldn’t have. Another one of those things Astrid was sure now she should have worried about sooner.

But Lady Vess had been right about more than a few things… As much as Astrid hates it. Maybe the three of them stealing away small moments of affection just to say they could had gotten distracting. But maybe that had always been the point after all.

The latch clicks behind them just as Eodwulf locks lips with her’s. For a moment things are normal again. As if Wulf would still grin over to Bren, who would roll his eyes but still later find some way of flustering Eodwulf in return while Ikithon wasn’t looking. 

And if not normal, then at least good. Too good. Better than Astrid feels she deserves in that moment. It’s not fair either. Why did all the rational have to fall to her?

Astrid pulls back just enough to hiss, “What are you doing?”

“I feel bad you’re so upset.”

“This isn’t going to fix anything.” She still keeps her face close to his, words as quiet as she can make them. Ikithon had to be listening, somehow. This too had to be a part of it. “Wulf, this is bad.”

“I’m not a dumb kid he can just ship off to the crownsguard. It’s all idle threats.”

It feels like pieces clicking into place. It wasn’t idle threats, not for her. It was layers and layers of being pit against one another, feeling out just how far either of them would go; for each other, for Ikithon, for their own selfish reasons. And Eodwulf saw none of it. This wasn’t his sort of game.

“You’re a real idiot sometimes, you know that?” Astrid snaps. She knows she shouldn’t. She should tell him they’d talk more at home, where she wouldn’t have to be careful, but she’s been worn too thin for that.

“Hey.” Eodwulf gives her a flat look and she steps back, taking on a mocking tone.

“Stop playing games Astrid! I don’t like you like this Astrid! You’re scaring me Astrid!”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“You are! You all are! You never listen! And I’m tired, Wulf. I’m so fucking tired and nobody can pull their head out of their ass long enough to think for themselves or about anyone beside their self!” 

She thinks she’s beginning to understand why Bren broke. 

“That’s not fair-“

“You’re not being fair!” She shouldn’t be shouting. For fear of being heard and because the pain in her side flairs up again. There’s a tense moment of silence as Astrid winces, then seats herself on the bed. She grips and ungrips the edge, shutting her eyes as she reminds herself to breathe.

“What do you want from me, Astrid? I’m not sorry. I’m not going to be sorry. I’m not even going to promise I won’t do it again, because you know I can’t. You don’t want me to. Bren wouldn’t be either.”

“Bren’s not here!” But Wulf is right. He shouldn’t be, but he is. “It’s not even about that anymore. We can’t talk here. It’s a test… It’s… If I’m not prepared to put the rabid dog down, I shouldn’t have gotten the puppy.”

Eodwulf scowls, but at least seems to catch on. “I’m not rabid.”

“He thinks we are.”

“Clearly not you.”

Astrid laughs bitterly, then wipes away tears. “No, I’m just his prized bitch.”

“Stop it.” Another withering glare. It almost works.

“I don’t- I don’t want to have to hurt you. Wulf, please.” She finally let’s out. She thought she’d expressed it earlier, but maybe not. Maybe he still didn’t get it. Maybe, whatever risks she took on his behalf still weren’t going to prove anything to him. Like they still hadn’t done anything for Bren. “Why can’t you just do the right thing? I can’t do this alone! You promised! You both promised!” Maybe not in so many words, but they shouldn’t’ve had to. They were family. Her real family. The one that understood her and her goals. The one that wouldn’t put her in the position her parents had. Wouldn’t force her hand like they had.

“Hey.” Eodwulf’s voice sounds distant in the midst of her panic, but his arms tight around her help ground her just a little. “I’m not going anywhere. Bren’s not gone, he’s just… sick. He’ll get better.”

“We’re all breaking.” The whisper squeaks out of her constricting throat. “We keep messing up. I can’t do this to her.” There had been a nagging suspicion from the moment she told Ikithon; Now, if she were to ever truly misstep, she had a daughter to take her out as well. That if she and Bren and Eodwulf were all meant to balance each other out, then this was just one more weight in the scale. And no wonder Ikithon would be pleased by it, after losing Bren.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” Her fearful mind tells her he’s only patronizing her. That she’s the one throwing tantrums now. And Ikithon is right, they are tiresome.

  


There are pastries on the bedside table when she wakes, though Astrid doesn’t quite remember falling asleep. It isn’t any decent hour of the morning, but the lights had been left on. Eodwulf sprawls on the other side of the bed, book open and laid flat over his chest.

Astrid sits up to watch him sleep a moment, sighing to herself. “Just not sorry enough to keep from sneaking around the manor…”

She doesn’t blame him. She doesn’t want to blame him. How she would love to live in a world that worked the way Eodwulf seemed to think it did. If only she were allowed…

Rather than crawling back into bed after her trip to the washroom, Astrid grabs one of the throw blankets from the foot of the bed and tosses it over her shoulders like a cloak before exiting the room. First it’s just to stretch her legs, she tells herself. Then, that if she can’t sleep she may as well be doing something productive, and who knew when she’d have access to Ikithon’s personal library again.

What she doesn’t tell herself is that there is an odd sort of comfort in the way she already can’t quite catch her breath as she descends into Ikithon’s basement laboratory. That she missed when their punishments were simple and that she certainly deserved one now.

She pulls the blanket tighter around her shoulders, though she knows she isn’t really shaking because of the cold. The room is too dark to see anything, but Astrid drags her hand lightly over the work surfaces, tracing over spell components and potions.

“I know.” She whispers in response to another kick. Or maybe it’s simply more paranoia and a guilty mind. She can’t be sure. “I’m not going to do anything really…” She still toys with the bit of chalk she finds on one of the work surfaces. She’d been smarter than to bring Lady Vess’s letter with her, but still… Eodwulf would have done it.

Astrid scowls as this hypothetical continues to play out in her head. How it would just end the same as hours before. 

‘I’m not even going to promise I won’t do it again, because you know I can’t. You don’t want me to. Bren wouldn’t be either.’

He would be right again.

Astrid moves to the chair as the thoughts start to blend then with past conversations and past training. She lays her arms between the open straps and curls her fingers tightly over the end of the chair’s arms.

They’d never really spoken of what would happen if one of them fell, not on a personal level. That had been her fault. 

“We finish the job.” She’d repeated every time Eodwulf had brought it up. Because it was the right answer. The one Ikithon would have wanted.

What if one of them wasn’t simply dead? What if it were more complicated than that? What if, what if, what if… That was his job after all.

She thinks now he and Bren must have finished that conversation without her. Maybe he really did know what Bren would have wanted in this case.

“Am I going to be made to regret every decision now?” Ikithon’s voice cuts through the dark and Astrid’s thoughts. 

Astrid jumps. “I couldn’t sleep.”

Ikithon hums, doubtful. “I can’t imagine what you might find down here that would help with that. Unless you had other purposes…” 

“At the academy, when we couldn’t sleep, we used to sneak down to the labs…” He didn’t need to know that, but then again he almost certainly already knew. “But I havent touched anything here, sir.”

“I know.” The room lights up with a dim warm light. At least he sounds amused, like she should have known he’d have ways of knowing that as well. He moves from her periphery, to behind the chair where she can’t see him, and Astrid’s heart begins to hammer in her chest. The chair creaks ever so slightly as Ikithon comes to rest his hands on it’s back. “Do you think I ask too much of you, Astrid?”

“No, sir.”

“You seem quite adamant though in your opinion though that I am somehow to blame for Bren and now Eodwulf.”

“No, sir.” Even if she did, she knew better than to say. The fact that he’s mentioning it at all feels like a failure. “It’s only… It was supposed to be the three of us. Together. It’s… difficult, having to fill in Bren’s gaps. I don’t want to have to fill in Wulf’s as well.” 

“Perhaps I did you all a disservice, bringing you up together.”

“I don’t believe so, sir.”

Ikithon hums in thought. Astrid’s mind races.

“Wulf’ll come around. I’m sure once the baby is here-“

Ikithon laughs. “Poor, stupid girl… You really thought that was going to tether one of them to you?”

Yes. In more ways than one. Her chest feels heavy with the idea that he may have already known that as well. “They’re better than this, I know they are. I know we are.” It feels like begging still and she knows where that has always gotten her in the past, but… This feels like the end of a rope.

“It was quite the idea, but I’m afraid still a little too soft.”

“I’m just tired. I can- I can do it. I’ll make him be better.” She’d rather admit to that than being too soft. Tired could be fixed easily. Soft… Soft had to be tempered.

“Of course you are.” He reaches around to brush a bit of hair behind her ear. “I did try and warn you of this, didn’t I?” Maybe not in the exact words of don’t get pregnant Astrid. But don’t fall for them, Astrid. Don’t worry after them, Astrid. Don’t get attached. Don’t get distracted.

The residuum marks in her arm tingle. It’s more paranoia she’s sure. The fact that she’s down there at all. That he’s circling her in that chair.

“Let me help you, Astrid.” He rubs a thumb over her cheek before stepping away to go and pull something off one of the shelves.

She rubs at her arms while she waits. There’s an impulse to be suspicious. He didn’t help them. She shouldn’t need help. But she’s tried. And isn’t mistrusting him what got her here in the first place?

When Ikithon returns he offers her a spell scroll. 

“I should hope I don’t have to explain my purposes to you.”

Astrid unrolls the parchment and skims over the spell. “You mean for me to modify Wulf’s memories…” They’d never dealt in that kind of magic, not with their profession in mind at least. Astrid had always thought enchantments held the same regard to Ikithon as divination did to her. “What would I have him think?”

Ikithon shrugs. At least he doesn’t seem upset by the asking. “You know him better than I.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” She isn’t considering it. Only playing along. Or at least that’s what she tells herself.

“I suppose you can go back to crying and begging, if you like.”

She should feel insulted, she knows that was the intent, but something else has distracted her. “Have you tried on Bren?”

Ikithon sighs, seemingly genuinely saddened by his answer. “Bren is… a more delicate case, I’m afraid.” 

She frowns down at the scroll, beginning to try and puzzle through how to make it work. “Do I… have to, sir?”

“No.” The sharpness of his tone says otherwise. “I told you to do what needs to be done, I simply wanted to be sure you had all the tools available to you. Do what you think is best.”

“Thank you, sir.” She whispers and waits to be allowed to return to bed.


End file.
